Starring: Ricardo Darin, Gaston Pauls
Director: Fabian Bielinsky. Spanish with English subtitles.
Rated: M15+
IT has never happened before. After the media preview of Nine Queens seven film reviewers were huddled together arguing about whether ‘the maths adds up’.
For a film to necessitate such a discussion, Nine Queens must be a very clever film indeed.
In the pecking order of the criminal world Juan (Gaston Pauls) is at the bottom. He is a confidence trickster preying on convenience stores and old ladies. Marcos (Ricardo Darin), who is just slightly up the criminal batting order, sees Juan in action and asks him to join him for the day so that together they might make some serious money.
In the course of this day a once-in-a-criminal-lifetime scheme falls into their laps. A former colleague of Marcos asks him to complete a job he can’t do – sell off to a visiting Spanish businessman a forged set of ‘Nine Queens’, a rare sheet of stamps from the Weimar Republic.
The deal is done at the Buenos Aires Hilton where Marcos’ sister Valerie (Leticia Bredice) and his brother Frederic (Tomas Fonzi) both work. Everything goes wrong as our two small-time crooks learn they are playing for bigger stakes than they realised and nothing is as it appears.
This film spins a very engaging yarn, with an extraordinary number of narrative turns, and just when you think you have worked it out, the ending comes as big as a surprise as The Usual Suspects.
This very enjoyable and engaging Argentinian film blows out of the water the idea that there is honour among thieves, but then again maybe it doesn’t. Go and do the maths!
