To me, this movie is perfection.

Surprisingly incoherent and boring

People are voting emotionally.

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

"Nine Queens" is a movie in which we watch two con artists try to make a deal with a stamp collector by selling him a sheet of counterfeit rare stamps. Also in their try to make this deal happen they have to give many things in order to get what they want, so we watch them fight with their selves to succeed this.I really liked this movie because of the plot which I believe it was great and in some moments I could not know what to believe or better who to believe. In addition to this I have to say that the direction of Fabian Bielinsky was really good and this is something that we can understand in the whole duration of the film. About the interpretations of this movie I have to mention the very good interpretation of Ricardo Darín who was for one more time outstanding in his role and the interpretations of Gastón Pauls and Leticia Brédice who were equally good.Lastly I want to say that "Nine Queens" is a really different movie than the other Crime - Thriller movies because it combines very good the plot which is perfectly written with the cast. Also I have to say that this movie remind me the movie "The Game" with Michael Douglas which I believe has many common things and one of those is that you can not expect anything and you can not believe anyone.

Nine Queens follows the activities of two Argentine street-hustlers who team-up as partners for a day. Juan is a young man whose good looks and innocent appearance give him an advantage over the women that he cheats. He was taught some tricks of the trade by his father who is now in prison awaiting trial and regrets teaching his son how to steal. Marcos, the older of the two men, attempts to open Juan's eyes to the scams that are going on everywhere around them in the streets of Buenos Aires, where every thief claims not to be a thief. He sees Juan as being naive because the younger man expresses some sympathy for his victims and puts limits on what he will take from them. Marcos has no such remorse. He thinks of having a conscience as ridiculous and a hindrance to his trade.The action suddenly becomes more intense when a former partner of Marcos introduces the pair to the scam of a lifetime. The man has counterfeited a sheet of nine rare stamps, worth hundreds of thousands if genuine. He plans to sell the stamps each of which display the image of a woman in profile, the nine queens, to a billionaire stamp collector. Unable to carry out the sale himself, the forger enlists Marcos' help in selling the stamps. Things quickly devolve into a series of struggles over who will get what percentage of the take as everyone who becomes involved uses their skills to overcome the obstacles to the sale, leaving the viewer uncertain about who is the hustler and who is being hustled.The story is fast-paced and well-acted. Dialogue is in Spanish with English and French subtitles.

This is how a crime movie should be like; great, clever, fun and original. "Nueve reinas" has all of these elements in it, making this a great movie to watch! Really, it's a movie that deserves to be seen by more but most people have most likely never even heard about this movie, since it's an Argentinian production. This shall probably also scare a whole bunch of people off already but honestly, Latin American productions are often perfectly watchable ones and besides made in pretty much the same style as Hollywood productions. In other words; perfectly accessible to watch, even for those who aren't really accustomed to watching 'foreign' movies.It luckily was a movie that earned lots of critical praise and got recognized by still many, all over the world, as a great movie. It makes at all the more a big shame that director Fabián Bielinsky died a couple of years after this movie, at a fairly young age. I'm convinced that this guy could had made many more great movies, like this one.Foremost reason why this movie works out well is because it's being a fun movie to watch. Not necessarily in a comedy way but more due to the way the story progresses and how the main characters slowly but steadily get into more and more trouble, as they try to make a big score. It often gets them in some unexpected situations and ensures that the movie makes plenty of twists and turns with its story.It's a simple movie with its setup but one that gets made slightly more complicated with developments. Not that the movie ever gets hard to follow though. Saying that it's often being clever does not mean that it's also totally going overboard with anything and the story becomes too hard or complex to follow.It has some solid characters in it as well and the movie gets mostly carried by its two main leads, played by Ricardo Darín and Gastón Pauls. All around the movie features some good performances in it, which was also necessary, since it's actually a very talkative movie as well, once you start thinking back about it. Don't let this scare you off though, since the movie is still fast paced as well and features plenty of great developments and situations in it, that will keep you interested at all times.A movie that deserves to be seen by more!8/10 http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/

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.