April 19, 2002 | Fabian Bielinsky's Nine Queens is
a fleet and frisky movie about con artists and, by extension, con artistry so
I don't want to tell you much about the plot. Trouble is, I fear I've
already told you too much.
Think about it: Whenever you know a movie will involve fleecing an easy
mark, and fooling a credulous audience, you're already a couple of steps
ahead of the game, right? I mean, when you're aware even before you buy
a ticket that a filmmaker wants to pull the wool over your eyes, and
yank the rug from under your feet, you're primed to a keep a vigilant
watch for the first sign of narrative trickery, the earliest hint of
a sneaky plot twist. Unlike the wide-eyed innocents, or self-absorbed
not-so-innocents, who are swindled so easily on screen, you're fully
aware of what's in store for you.
Truth to tell, I could see the surprise ending
of Nine Queens coming
a good half-hour or so before it finally arrived. Even so, I was amused
and entertained by the unfolding of Bielinsky's cleverly constructed
scenario, and greatly impressed by the skill of the actors involved in
the enterprise. This Argentine-produced import is a great deal of fun,
largely because, much like the savvier members of the audience, the two
leads are determined not to be conned. The beauty part is, both men are
con artists, and even as they join forces for a highly lucrative scam,
each one can't help suspecting the worst of the other.
Marcos (Ricardo Darin), a middle-aged smoothie
with a Mephistophelian goatee and a vaguely melancholy air, takes an
instant interest in Juan (Gaston Pauls), a younger, more impulsive
con artist who tries, and fails, to pull the same bill-changing scam
on two cashiers at the same gas-station minimart. Authoritatively posing
as a cop, Marcos sweeps Juan out the door and, while he's at it, pockets the younger man's ill-gotten gain before
the storeowner can call a real police officer.
From such professional courtesy if, indeed,
it is professional
courtesy a daylong partnership is formed.
Claiming his usual partner is nowhere to be found, Marcos enlists Juan
as a temporary partner in crime. At first, however, the union seems merely
an excuse for a game of one-upmanship, as each man pulls a minor swindle
to test the other's mettle. It's not until Marcos receives a summons
from his long-estranged sister, Valeria (Leticia Bredice), that the seemingly
random teaming leads to something important.
At the luxury hotel where Valeria works and where, she angrily warns,
she doesn't want any funny business going on an aging con man tells
Marcos and Juan of his scheme to sell forged copies of collector's items:
Weimer Republic-era stamps known as The Nine Queens. Unfortunately,
he's suddenly too sick to finish the con. Would Marcos, and maybe Juan,
be interested in making the sale to a rich businessman who's about to
be exiled from Argentina?
Judging from what happens next, writer-director Bielinsky has spent
a lot of time studying the masterworks of Alfred Hitchcock and David
Mamet. Better still, he learned his lessons well. With all the sly efficiency
of a three-card monte dealer, Nine Queens proceeds at brisk
clip through the intricacies of the master con, craftily forging a chain
of plots and counterplots, role-playing and role-reversal, as the mismatched
partners set their perfect plan into motion, and desperately improvise
whenever something unforeseen goes wrong.
The performances are everything they must be in this tricky hall of
mirrors, which means that's we're never altogether certain who, if anyone,
should be trusted. If Ricardo Darin is a standout, that's only because,
in addition to mastering the fine art of ambiguity, he suggests something
sadder and more self-aware beneath a surface of raffish cynicism. At
times, his Marcos appears to be the only person in Nine Queens who
understands that, even if he succeeds at fooling everyone else, he'll
never be able to fool himself.