Directed by Louis Malle. Starring Brigitte Bardot and Jeanne Moreau. In French with English subtitles. Unrated. Plays Friday and Saturday, January 20 and 21, at the Pacific Cinémathíƒ ¨que

When was the last time you saw a movie that had star power, high energy, pro-revolutionary and anticlerical sentiments, a burlesque sense of sexuality, splendid locations, comic action, and a happy ending? If the answer is never, then you really owe it to yourself to see Viva Maria!, a restored 1965 romp made by Louis Malle at his most playful.

The two Marias of the title are a French-Irish explosives expert (Brigitte Bardot) who hooks up with an all-French showgirl (Jeanne Moreau) in turn-of-20th-century Central America. These mismatched chorines quickly concoct a sexy act that makes them the toast of banana republics everywhere. In San Miguel, however, the most unjust of these semifeudal states, the repression that they see all around drives these cheesecake queens into the arms of the local revolutionaries, and they are soon at war with the landlords, oligarchs, generals, and reactionary priests who have long made peasant life a living hell.

The chemistry between Bardot and Moreau is terrific, the music by Georges Delerue strikes just the right nostalgic note, the cinematography of Henri Decaíƒ « keeps us anticipating his next juicy shot, and the light tone of the violence never quite lets us forget that such struggles have long been played out for real in Guatemala and America's other client states in this painfully poor region.

Despite its feast of empty calories, Viva Maria! has both a conscience and a heart.