One of my all time favorites.

A waste of 90 minutes of my life

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

The acting in this movie is really good.

Marcos, an experienced con artist, takes on the young, inexperienced Juan as an apprentice for a day. A call from Marcos's estranged sister gives them a lead to a big opportunity - a forger has created an exact duplicate of a rare set of stamps, the Nine Queens, which he was trying to sell to a stamp collecting, exiled diplomat who will leave the country the next day. When Marcos comes into possession of the stamps, he engages Juan's help to pull off the con. But as the difficulty increases and obstacles keep falling in their way, it becomes more and more difficult to determine who, exactly, is conning who.Like any great con movie, Nueve Reinas is full of deception and lies. The fun part is unraveling who is conning who, and how they are going about it. Was the whole movie one big con, or does it only seem that way to the viewer? How much was planned beforehand, laying in wait for the two main characters to arrive?Any story about lies is also intimately concerned with trust. Juan trusts Marcos to show him the ropes. Marcos' sister tries to convince their younger brother not to trust him. Juan's father trusts him to stay out of trouble and to bail him out of prison.But in this tangle of truth and lies, who is telling the truth? And what are they getting out of it?Family, friends, and lovers? One of this movie's major themes is the importance of family. As Marcos and Juan become caught up in the con of a lifetime, they are also caught up in a web of family intrigues. Marcos, we learn, has taken his sister and younger brother to court in an attempt to gain all of the family inheritance. His sister hates him. His brother still likes him, and seems to trust him despite everything. But when Marcos convinces his sister to do the unthinkable so that he, Marcos, will get money - what does family mean then? And will his brother still be able to love him? Is Marcos really worthy of love?This theme is repeated throughout the film. One of the first cons Marcos pulls is to trick an old woman into thinking that he is her nephew. Juan is trying to make money to help his dad out of prison. To Marcos, it seems that family is a malleable concept meant to be used to your advantage. And yet we see how lonely Marcos is; his one friend (on this day) seems to be Juan. He has betrayed and abandoned everyone else.Do we see a bit of repentance at the end of the movie? Perhaps. Or maybe Marcos is just sad about all the money he didn't get.

Nine Queens is a clever movie about cons and liars. Two small criminals embark in a journey to set up their biggest con ever. However, not everything unfolds as planned. All characters involved in the plan want their share of the cake and will try to coerce others to meet their interests. Our two artists must thus find ingenious ways to react and stay on track. The set of characters involved and the complexity of the scams grow crescendo, making it a captivating movie full of twists and turns. It will engage your brain to keep track of the events, but won't cross the threshold of confusion. The actors are sympathetic, the direction is solid, and the dialogs are punchy. The plot is convincing and witty. We could challenge its realism, as with any such movie, but it has not obvious holes and is a very good entertainment! A highly recommended movie for those who like puzzles.

I haven't seen the Remake yet (I think, if I have it must really be dreadful), but either way I suggest you stay with this as your initial and maybe only choice. This movie is a little gem, unfortunately unknown to many people. It has a terrific script to start with, that will leave you wondering and guessing what will happen next. The twists and turns it takes are all believable in the realm the movie takes place and make it even more exciting.One of the main actors is starring in the current Oscar winner for best foreign movie. But he has a great partner to play off with. But as I said before, the script is the main star, with great dialog and a story worthy to see. There is so much tension and so many things happening, you will enjoy this. Just don't think about it as real life. This is a movie and of course a few things that happen there, could not really happen or that too many things are coincidences. This would spoil the fun you could have with this movie!

Nine Queens is a tricky little film, a film so in love with the notion of tricks and heists and cons that it revolves most of its first hour or so around extended shots of two people walking, talking and engaging in heists and cons. Before you know it, you're being set up for the much bigger picture – which is one massive theft of some stamps that evolves into a con itself. Yes, it's complicated but its the nature of the game and of the life the people within the film live. Nine Queens lures you in, like a con artist would. It lures you in and dares you to try and keep up with these rather shady but relatively smart and good-looking leads as they talk the talk and walk the walk in and about their chosen lifestyle. You don't want to fall behind and you don't want to feel as if you're being conned in the process.Such is the manner of Nine Queens, a film I sought out after watching director Fabián Bielinsky's quite excellent 2005, but unreleased in Britain, film entitled 'The Aura' which itself was a heist film of sorts but incorporated many other aspects of a theoretical and film-making nature. Nine Queens carries a distinct style and its twisting, intriguing narrative keeps on bending and twirling whilst providing necessary substance. This is more about introducing characters as archetype thieves to the degree the writer/director deems fit and then allowing the film's plot, twists 'n' all, to just take over and force the fleshing out to occur if and when necessary.The thinking required for the film is kicked off in the opening scene. Juan (Pauls), a young and 'upcoming' con artist, tries to covertly rob an all night store in the same cheeky manner he has already done. The staff notice and he's in trouble but for Ricardo Darín's character Marcos, who poses as a police man and escorts poor Juan to safety. Juan realises that Marcos isn't a cop once they're out and gone and they exchange words. Turns out Marcos is a con artist as well and they banter. But did Juan get caught on purpose or is he just an inexperienced kid? Did Marcos step in because he needs a fall guy, or because he pitied the man? Who's acting? Who isn't? Who's playing who and who knows more than the other? The mind games in the exchanges have only just begun.Initially, I think the film is so bold as to actually play out in real time. The scenes of Juan and Marcos scouring the streets in search of potential cons, as Marcos adopts the teacher role in showing pupil Juan the tricks of the trade, are fascinating. Initially, the symbolism of each other's respective 'role' lies in their clothes. Juan's casual, young and therefore inexperienced 'role' is suggested through his casual jacket and jeans but is it just acting as a distraction? On the other hand, Marcos' suit and very formal get up suggests the term 'organised criminal', someone who takes pride in their dress sense and (albeit illegal) work. Someone rich with experience and with a certain guile – it suggests Marcos is perhaps smarter.But is Bielinsky leading us down a path with this visual representation and pretty basic student/pupil set up? The bolt from the blue is the bombshell Marcos drops on Juan to do with the thieving of some priceless stamps, from whence the title of the film is born, due to be passed onto a Spanish buyer in the next few days. This is further developed when it is revealed Marcos' sister, Valeria (Brédice), works at the hotel the deal is supposed to occur in and doubles up as someone Juan seems to have his eye on from the beginning. Again, what does it all mean? Who knows more than the other? What's the con that's going on? With Juan needing a certain amount of money to aid in his arrested father's pledge for freedom, a sum close to half a million all of a sudden looks like quite a payday.But the film is more than a few cheery scenes of inventive cons and tricks. The film pauses for its characters to question themselves, raising issues of identity within this criminal circuit. While it doesn't glamorise theft or criminal activity, Marcos tells Juan of the misconception behind what it is they do. There is a consistent referring to how crooks are different to thieves, something that walks along the lines of theft and masterminding a con being an art-form in which it takes a certain amount of skill and acting in pulling off that sort of robbery. I believe this to be comparable to a 'crook' mentality, in which charging in with guns blazing and getting away with money whilst leaving a room of corpses is the alternative. Marcos argues that being a thief is not the same as being a crook and that there are other terms for thieves whereas a criminal is just a criminal.As the narrative draws to a close and certain revelations took place, I was amazed at how my own emotions had been twisted and manipulated. What at first seemed like bizarre coincidences or acts of basic stupidity perhaps propelled by a bad script were, in fact, planned actions designed to lull both us and certain characters in. There is a punch to Nine Queens, a gritty realism and a definite 'look' delivered on top of a neat little narrative that I think works really well. It even inspired the Americans to remake it in 2004.