Argentina’s choice for 96e Oscars, which will take place on March 10th, the film The criminals by Rodrigo Moreno is reminiscent of many works, but ultimately resembles no other.
Morán (Daniel Elías) is an unnamed bank employee. His work is banal, not to say boring, his days are marked by cigarette breaks between two problems that have to be solved with the seriousness appropriate to his role – on this day it is the dark story of two customers who have the same handwriting. Then, in front of the surveillance cameras, Morán calculates the exact amount of $469,800 that he will steal from the institution’s coffers.
But why $469,800? That’s twice the salary he would earn until retirement. Another simple calculation is that if he goes to the police – without returning the money – his sentence of three and a half years will be highly profitable. All he needs is an accomplice to hide the sports bag with the tickets – his colleague Román (Esteban Bigliardi).
Like all good bank heist stories, the criminals have to deal with all sorts of unforeseen circumstances, and The Delinquents respects this convention to the letter. But that’s all. Because the unexpected is nothing ordinary and the filmmaker and screenwriter Rodrigo Moreno has fun mixing up the genre and driving the viewer crazy, wrapped in a deliberately absurd, dry humor and, above all, without any tension or adrenaline rush. Only Astor Piazzolla’s tangos characterize this funny film, which we quickly become attached to.
At 180 minutes – the equivalent of three episodes of La Casa de Papel, that excellent series with which we associate first because of the Spanish, then because of the meticulousness of the production – “Les delinquents” goes into detail, sometimes even to the point to indigestion. But patients are rewarded… just like in life.
The film “The Delinquents” hits theaters on November 3rd.
Rating: 3.5 out of 5