*½ out of 4 stars

Rated PG-13 for some language, sexual humor and partying.

"Sydney White" is an Amanda Bynes comedy that shows the after-effects a long-running TV sitcom can have on an actress. The snappy, quick-on-the-uptake Bynes of "She's the Man" is missing in this college updating of "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs."

Sydney has been raised "by construction workers," she says in her opening narration. Her widowed dad (John Schneider) did the best he could. But she's wholly unprepared to go to Southern Atlantic University and pledge with the Kappas, her late mother's beloved sorority. So she casts her lot with "the seven dorks."

These guys are a motley but amusing collection of stereotypes, with Danny Strong, Samm Levine and Jeremy Howard as the standouts. Also funny is Sydney's roommate (Crystal Hunt), a very Southern, too-perky sorority princess.

You can guess the plot. Sydney leads a populist insurrection against the wealthy minority elite who are sucking up all the resources and power at SAU. "Sydney White" is certainly a comedown for Bynes after her turn in "Hairspray." But the trick to the great performers is that they never let us see that.

ROGER MOORE,

ORLANDO SENTINEL

MANDA BALA (SEND A BULLET)

*** out of four stars

Not rated; violence, drug use, nudity, language.

Theater: Lagoon.

Sao Paulo, Brazil, with a population of 20 million and more financial capital flowing through it than the rest of South America combined, is, unsurprisingly, a hotbed of kidnapping.

The documentary "Manda Bala (Send a Bullet)" is fascinating when it details the horrific particulars of this criminal enterprise. The kidnappings are usually performed by impoverished residents of the city's sprawling favela slums, who favor such gratuitous methods as videotaping the tormented captives and mailing their cut-off ears to relatives.

For their part, the city's wealthy targets move around in helicopters and, when they have to come down from their high-rise sanctuaries, in bullet-proofed cars that aren't bullet-proof enough.

Interviews with abductors, victims and detectives in this Sundance Film Festival award-winning film are as absorbing as they are chilling. But rich as it is, first-time director Jason Kohn, a New Yorker with Latin American roots, isn't content with just that material. He's out to link this bloody enterprise to the highest levels of government corruption.

Artful editing, an electric samba soundtrack and harrowingly grainy ransom videos give "Manda Bala" a kick that's rare in a documentary. And the squirm factor reaches its peak with Dr. Juarez Avelar, a brilliant and jolly plastic surgeon who specializes in ear reconstruction using rib cartilage. We're shown pretty much an entire operation, which says more about how Brazil is cannibalizing itself than all the reductive tadpole imagery in the world.

BOB STRAUSS,