Film: Nine Queens
Release date: 27th January 2003
Certificate: 15
Running time: 114 mins
Director: Fabián Bielinsky
Starring: Gastón Pauls, Ricardo Darín, Leticia Brédice, Tomás Fonzi, Graciela Tenenbaum
Genre: Crime/Thriller
Studio: Optimum
Format: DVD
Country: Argentina
“If you think you’ve got it figured out…you’ve been conned.” The tagline to this Argentinean heist movie sounds like a direct challenge handed down from first-time director Fabian Bielinsky to his audience. Can YOU solve the puzzle?
You’ll spend most of the next two hours trying to do precisely that as Bielinsky toys with his public as much as his two main protagonists toy with their prey.
The aforementioned duo - Marcos (Ricardo Darín) and Juan (Gaston Pauls) - meet, apparently by chance, in a store in Buenos Aires. After the savvy Marcos steps in to rescue Juan from a con-gone-wrong, the two agree to join forces for the day. Marcos shows his young ally the tricks of his trade, including his special talent for fleecing helpless old ladies.
So far, so petty. But then the thieves stumble upon the deal of a lifetime – the chance to sell an expert forgery of an extremely rare, exceedingly expensive set of stamps. These are the Nine Queens of the title, and they lead Marcos and Juan to a potential buyer, Vidal Gandolfo (Ignasi Adabal).
The small-time crooks are on the cusp of a big splash but there are obstacles along the way. The delicate negotiations are one thing but another roadblock arrives in the guise of Marcos’ sister Valeria (Leticia Bredice), who works at the hotel in which Gandolfo is staying. She cannot hide her contempt for the brother who cheated his siblings out of their inheritance.
The stakes rise, and the tension grows as Marcos and Juan - uneasy bedfellows from the very beginning - walk a tightrope between riches and ruin. All the while, the audience is left to work out exactly who is tricking whom…
It takes something special to stand out in the crowded arena of heist movies, but Nine Queens is something special. The dialogue snaps back and forth, and the performances are note-perfect, from the fiery Bredice as Valeria to Adabal’s knowing Gandolfo.
But it’s the two leads - Darín and Pauls - that elevate this work onto a higher plane. Darín’s Marcos is wily, suave and confident, impenetrable with his manicured goatee beard and his cold, narrow eyes. Pauls’ Juan is the pretender prone to careless mistakes, wet behind the ears and thrust into danger when he has apparently just come along for the ride.
And yet, as the action unfolds, they switch roles. Marcos, the ultimate ‘big fish in a small pond’, segues from self-assured to fraught and fretting as the con approaches its denouement. Juan, so clumsy in the opening scene, seems like a little boy lost in the big boy’s world of deception. “I hope one day I’m as good as you, teacher,” is an early refrain to Marcos. He seems unsuited for this dog-eat-dog existence – his conscience won’t allow him to stoop as low as Marcos, who doesn’t flinch as he relieves a pensioner of 100 pesos and an antique ring. But the hotter it gets, the cooler Juan becomes. Indeed, he keeps the trick on track with some timely interventions as Marcos begins to flounder.
The trust (or lack of) between the two con-artists provides the movie with its centre point, but Bielinsky pulls us into a world where pretty much everyone is on the make, as they hustle amid the bustle of Buenos Aires. Marcos and Juan are crafty enough but, in one sequence, we are introduced to a pack of petty criminals as bags are snatched, cars are jacked and pockets are picked.
Everyone is playing the game, but they seem to be in denial. One grifter offers Marcos and Juan an array of stolen merchandise from his tardis-like briefcase. He is asked instead for a gun and immediately looks hurt. “I’m not a crook,” he insists. They all are, of course.
Cesar Lerner’s soundtrack lurks in the background, never intrusive and yet capable of ramping up the tension, notably when a overworked paper shredder grunts and groans with menace during the negotiation that could sink Marcos and Juan’s grand plan.
And all the while, Bielinsky’s script keeps the film ticking along at a rate of knots. Some of the movie’s finest and most cutting lines are reserved for Gandolfo and Valeria, but Marcos doesn’t miss out. Noting that Juan has taken a liking to his sister, he delivers a scathing put-down: “Can’t you see the way she swings her ass? There are no saints.”
Bielinsky’s razor-sharp writing and directing announced a huge talent to the world. He is at least partly responsible for the renaissance in Latin American cinema at the start of the century, a period that spawned the likes of Y Tu Mama Tambien and Amores Perros. Yet there is a tragic footnote to Bielinsky’s own story. The Brazilian died after suffering a heart attack in Sao Paulo in 2006 during a casting for an advertisement. He was just 47.
The world, denied the years of potential greatness ahead, will have to judge him on his debut. And Nine Queens is a film you would want to be judged on.
When you ask filmgoers to name their favourite cinematic ‘cons’, the likes of The Sting, The Usual Suspects and The Spanish Prisoner usually enter the conversation. Nine Queens belongs in the same exalted company. It’s never boring, often gripping, and both easy to follow and hard to predict. Which is exactly what you want when you watch a heist movie. CH
