Starring Alan Arkin, Pedro Cardoso Directed by Bruno Barreto Rated R with violence, profanity Running time 113 minutes Jack gives this film a rating of 7 out of 10

(Feb. 27, 1998) -- America and France weren't the only countries torn in the 1960s by political strife and the rebellious actions of its young.

In September 1969, a small group of idealistic young Brazilians kidnapped the U.S. ambassador. They hoped the incident would put an international spotlight on the injustices of Brazil's military dictatorship and secure the release of political prisoners.

Their story is told in Four Days in September, an often-engrossing dramatization by highly regarded Brazilian director Bruno Barreto. It's based on a memoir written a decade after the event by participant Fernando Gabeira.

Just nominated for an Oscar as best foreign language film, Four Days in September seems to be in the tradition of such great Costa-Gavras political thrillers of the '60s and early '70s as Z and State of Siege. But Barreto departs from the tradition in significant ways.

Detailed nearly 30 years after the fact, Four Days in September lacks both the immediacy and emotional edge of the Costa-Gavras films.

Costa-Gavras took sides in his films -- and rammed home his political opinion. Usually, he made the viewer as angry at injustice as he was.

Barreto chooses a less intense, more humane approach, declaring no bad guys or ideological preference. Four Days in September is a behavioral study, not a political treatise.

Barreto paints nearly all his characters as victims of an oppressive system, whether they're the hostage or the kidnappers, the tortured or the torturers.

The resulting film is not as intense or taut as it could be. Barreto seems too timid -- his movie is a bit too cautious.

In Four Days much of the action is determined by loopy happenstance and accident -- not by effective planning or execution.

But that brings us to the film's strength: Barreto's focus on human behavior and the relationships that develop among the young rebels, among the government authorities who pursue them, and between the kidnappers and their American hostage (beautifully played by Alan Arkin).

The result is appealing. We can easily identify with people on either side of the conflict, especially as we witness the relatively inept planning of these naive but passionate student rebels. They're eventually caught because they order too much roasted chicken from a nearby take-out restaurant! That the rebels' fate depends on a fast-food order shows the human scale of this film.