Be forewarned. I’m going to lie my butt off in this review! I really don’t have much choice. It’s either that or BIG TIME SPOILERS and between those choices I opt for lying. Wow, is that liberating, or what? Freed from the tiresome tether of truthfulness, I’ll soar into the lofty realm of cumulus fibs. I feel like I’m about to experience a paroxysm of perverse prevarication, a cornucopia of incautious confabulation, a modicum of malicious mendacity, a dalliance with delicious deception! Whoa, easy, boy! . . . . Say, if you tell a person that you’re going to lie and then you tell them the truth, is the truth then a lie? Is a lie then truth? Beats me!

The problem, you see, is that Fabian Bielinsky’s Nine Queens (Nueve Reinas in Spanish) is about a transvestite softball team. Oophs, sorry, that whopper slipped out prematurely. The problem is that Nine Queens is one of those films about con-artistry in the manner of, say, The Sting (1973) (for you old-farts) or House of Games (1987) or The Grifters (1990) (for you young squeakers). The main fun of the film comes from it having more twists and turns than a whirling dervish. Whatever you think is going on isn’t and just as you think you’ve figured out one twist, the floor drops out from under your feet and you fall to another level. Anything I tell you about the plot, therefore, either has to be a pack of lies or a spoiler. Here comes my pack of lies!

The Story (My Great Big Pack of Lies): A young amateurish grifter named Juan (Ricardo Darin) is running an age-old bill-switch con on the cashier of a convenience store. Her shift ends right after he cons her out of a few dollars and the greedy Juan decides that he’ll pull it again on her replacement. In the back room, the first cashier, while checking out with the manager figures out that she’s been conned and, reemerging, she points Juan out to the manager. He grabs onto Juan and tells the girls to call the police. It turns out, however, that another man in the store is an undercover cop and he flashes his gun and takes Juan into custody along with the stolen money (for evidence).

A couple of blocks away, the “policeman” releases Juan. Turns out Juan has been “taken into custody” not by a policeman but by a more experienced con-artist, Marcos (Ricardo Darin), who took pity on his hapless “colleague.” Twist numero uno! Marcos lectures the younger man on the hazards of excessive greed and offers to take Juan on as an apprentice. Juan is dubious but agrees to a “one day only” trial period. He’s desperate to make some quick money to get his Dad out of the slammer. He’s got $50,000 but needs another $20,000. The two men proceed to share some of their petty cons with one another, rousting in various ways an old lady in an apartment building, a waiter at a restaurant, and a lady in an elevator.

Marcos gets a call from his sister, Valeria (Leticia Bredice) – with whom he has a very strained relationship. Not surprising really, ‘cause there’s nothing like swindling your siblings (Valeria and little brother Federico (Tomas Fonzi)) out of their share of the family inheritance to trigger a rift. Valeria, in contrast to her brother, is a decent sort of gal and a good deal better than decent in the looks department. As even brother Marcos notes, “She’s got a great . . . derriere” (his word was less French). Valeria works in a hotel and the last thing she wants is sleazy brother Marcos around, but one of Marcos’s old associates, Sandler (Oscar Nunez) has had a heart attack in the hotel lobby while setting up a con and begged Valeria to contact her brother before the ambulance arrives. It seems that Sandler was in the midst of a conman’s score-of-a-lifetime, but there’s just a one day window of opportunity and what with his heart attack . . . . he desperately needs someone to finish the job for a percentage. He offers 20%; Marcos demands 90%. So it goes. As Marcos puts it, “I’ve got you by the . . . . rondures.” (Marcos’s word was again less French). Sandler gives in. Sandler has a high quality forgery of a rare pane of stamps – the so-called “Nine Queens.” Not good enough to pass a lab test but likely good enough to pass visual inspection. There is a mark – a wealthy philatelist – staying in the hotel by the name of Vidal Gandolfo (Ignazi Abadal). He is scheduled to be deported in the morning. With that kind of time pressure, Gandolfo won’t have time to get the stamps thoroughly examined and will likely not be able to resist the opportunity of acquiring them at a bargain.

Marcos initially wants to cut Juan out of the deal, but Juan soon proves himself indispensable. The stamps have to be picked up from Sandler’s wife (Ceila Juarez). She won’t let the sleazy Marcos in the door but the baby-faced Juan has no trouble sweet-talking her with some cockeyed story about photos for his dear old mother. Marcos reluctantly cuts Juan in for 30%. Now they have to figure out how to make contact with the mark. They set up a cell-phone-in-the-men’s-room scam designed to ensure that Gandolfo will overhear Marcos’s fake conversation from his stall. Marcos mentions the “Nine Queens.” A fake security cop, Texano (Robert Rey) is thrown in for verisimilitude. Gandolfo doesn’t really buy it all, but is intrigued by the stamps anyway. He tells Marcos and Juan to bring them by his room at 4:00 PM.

At the appointed time, the stamps are inspected by an expert (Leon Dyzen), who complains that without a lab test he won’t be able to be certain. He examines the stamps with a magnifying glass (creating nervous moments for the cons) and declares them definitely authentic. Gandolfo and the grifters haggle over a price and settle of $450,000. The deal will go down at 10:00 PM.

Later, outside on the street, Marcos and Juan are mulling over their good fortune when a couple of motorcycle-based thieves snatch the portfolio containing the stamps. Marcos and Juan give chase, nearly catching the cycle a couple of times, but the thieves toss the contents of the portfolio – the stamps – into the river as they speed away. No more stamps! No more deal! No more grifters payday of a lifetime! Or, maybe there’s still a way.

The real stamps are owned by Sandler’s sister-in-law, Berta (Elsa Berenguer). If they can purchase them from her for something significantly less than the $450,000, they can still pocket the difference. She’s got some kind of bleached-blond, puffy-haired live-in tough-guy with her, so ripping her off is out of the question. They haggle and settle on a figure of $250,000. Marcos says he can come up with $200,000 – the family inheritance that he cheated his siblings out of, basically – if Juan can pitch in the other $50,000 that he’s been saving to help his Dad. Juan begins to suspect that he’s the one being conned. Nevertheless, he finally takes the plunge.

The $250,000 is pulled together, the stamps purchased, and the pair heads to the hotel to close the deal. Unfortunately, Gandolfo throws in one last twist – a change in price but not monetary. He wants a night with Marcos’s sexy sister, Valeria. He’s had her eyes on her for days, strutting around the lobby, and, at the moment, fellatio is more on his mind than philately. No Valeria, do deal! What to do? Marcos has absolutely no leverage with his sister. She hates his guts. Wait a minute – what about the inheritance? He could offer to come square with her. Not good enough. She also wants him to admit to the younger brother than he ripped them off. Desperate times require desperate measures. Marcos eats crow, fesses up to his hitherto-admiring brother, and Valeria goes off to bang Gandolfo. Marcos and Juan are left to sleep in the lobby ‘til morning, waiting to find out if their sweet deal has gone down or not. Have they both been conned by Gandolfo? Is Marcos conning Juan or will he try to cheat him out of his share at the last minute? Will Juan somehow con Marcos out of his share? Or, will the Argentinian economy collapse entirely – after all, politics and embezzlement is the grandest con of all? Is there another level entirely? Don’t ask me! I’ve just been lying my ass off all this time anyway.

Themes: There’s nothing terribly deep here beyond the obvious: (1) there’s no honor among thieves; (2) hold onto your wallet, your briefcase, and your rondures if you ever get to Buenos Aires; and (3) con-artists come in all sizes – small-time, big-time, and politicians.

Production Values: Nine Queens is a tight little package! The script for the film was selected from among several hundred submitted in a script competition – which earned Bielinsky the funding to film it. Almost every review I’ve read of this film likens the script to those of David Mamet films. I’ll take that at face value since The Spanish Prisoner is the only Mamet film with which I’m acquainted. The performances in Nine Queens are key to the films success. Con-artists are inherently performers, so these actors had the difficult task of playing characters who were themselves playing characters. Darin and Pauls were outstanding in the two lead male roles, coming across as smart, complex and subtle. Leticia Bredice, by contrast, was gloriously unsubtle, moving that caboose like a bowl full of gelatin. The pace of the film was excellent. Some reviewers claim that the various twists were overly obvious – I guess I’m just not too bright. I could tell only that there were more twists coming but it wasn’t at all obvious to me which way the writers would take the story. I was intrigued right up to the end.

Bottom-Line: I heard that this film may be remade by Hollywood this year or next, but why wait? The vast majority of Hollywood remakes of foreign films are inferior to the originals. Nine Queens sparkles with imagination and lively performances. It’s as good a film as that fine swindler film The Grifters and is just a great theme song shy of the classic The Sting. If you liked either of those films, check this one out. It is in Spanish with English subtitles and has a running time of 115 minutes. I kid you not . . . . . maybe!


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You might want to check out these other excellent films from Argentina:

Camila
Man Facing Southeast
The Official Story
Veronico Cruz

Recommended:
Yes

Video Occasion: Fit for Friday Evening
Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children Age 13 and Older