Nine Queens [DVD] [2002] - Region 2 DVD

The intrigue grips from the very outset as Juan, a young con artist, overreaches himself in a grocery store. He's rescued from disaster by Marcos, an older and more experienced grifter, who then takes him on in a master-pupil relationship. When the chance of a major coup involving some rare stamps (the Queens of the title) turns up, the partnership starts coming under strain; can either one really trust the other? And is either who he pretends to be? The plot suffers from a few implausibilities and loose ends, but sustains its momentum beguilingly. Ricardo Darín, as the saturnine Marcos, and Gastón Pauls as the fresh-faced, seemingly ingenuous Juan play off each other beautifully--but the dominant character is the seething, hustling city of Buenos Aires itself, where social mores are fluid and uncertain, and everybody has his eye out for the main chance. This is a society Bielinsky (who also scripted) clearly knows intimately, and like a true con-artist he makes shrewd use of his expertise to keep us guessing right up to the final twist. –-Philip Kemp