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.
