Nine Queens Reviews

Since I kept hearing some really good things about this flick, I was quite eager to check it out. The funny thing is that, somehow, I first saw ‘Criminal’, the US remake, and, surprisingly, it took me 10 years to finally see this original version. Fortunately, this way, I didn’t remember much about the remake which didn’t spoil this movie for me. Anyway, since this movie has a really strong reputation, I had some rather high expectations. However, even though I had to admit that it was indeed pretty good, to be honest, it wasn’t much more than that though. I mean, I always loved movies dealing with con artists and I have to admit that this movie is probably one of the best in this genre. On top of that, Ricardo Darín and Gastón Pauls both delivered some solid performances, especially Darín. Eventually, what bothered me with this movie was that it wasn’t as clever as many might argue. I mean, as long they were focusing on some small cons, it felt really genuine and quite spellbinding to behold. The problem is that, right from the start, it was obvious that one of the characters was running some long con so the ending turned out to be hardly surprising after all. The other thing with this conclusion is that it meant that roughly 90% of what you saw was actually fake which was not only frustrating but also not really convincing. For example, right from the very first scene at the gas station, how could Juan know that everything Marcos would do would exactly fit his ‘master’ plan? Then, from the moment Marcos gets a phone call from his sister, everything became some kind of theatre play during which virtually everyone talking to him from this point on was basically some actor. Sure, it might seem amazing but while I have to admit that it was entertaining, it didn’t really impress me that much because it was just too convoluted.  Anyway, to conclude, even if it didn't turn out to be such a masterpiece after all, it was still a solid thriller and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you like the genre.