Nine Queens

Nine Queens
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Fabián Bielinsky
Produced by	Cecilia Bossi Pablo Bossi
Written by	Fabián Bielinsky
Starring	Gastón Pauls Ricardo Darín Leticia Brédice Tomás Fonzi
Music by	César Lerner
Cinematography	Marcelo Camorino
Editing by	Sergio Zottola
Distributed by	Buena Vista International
Release date(s)	August 31, 2000
Running time	114 minutes
Country	Argentina
Language	Spanish
Budget	$1,500,000 estimated.[citation needed]
Box office	$12,413,888 [1]

Nine Queens (Spanish: Nueve Reinas) (2000) is an Argentine crime drama film written and directed by Fabián Bielinsky. The picture features Gastón Pauls, Ricardo Darín, Leticia Brédice, and Tomás Fonzi, among others.^[2]

The film was nominated for 28 awards and won 21 of them.

It tells the story of two con artists who meet, apparently randomly, and decide to cooperate in a scam.

Plot

The film opens at a convenience store early in the morning. Juan, a con artist, successfully scams the cashier, but later messes up by attempting the same scam again on the next shift. Marcos, who has been observing the whole time, steps in pretending to be a police officer and takes Juan away. As soon as they are far enough from the shop, Marcos tells Juan he is not actually a cop but a fellow con man. Juan asks Marcos to show him the ropes, because his father, also a con man, is in jail and he needs to raise money to bribe the judge to reduce his father's sentence to six months from ten years.

Then a rare scheme seemingly falls into their laps: a former business associate of Marcos convinces them to sell counterfeit copies he made of some rare stamps called "The Nine Queens". The potential mark is Gandolfo, a rich Spaniard who is facing deportation and desperate to smuggle his wealth out of the country. He is unable to fully check if the stamps are authentic but he hires an expert to do a quick check and is satisfied. He offers them $450,000 for the stamps, the exchange to take place that evening. In the intervening time, a number of things go wrong. The stamp expert demands a cut, as he knew the stamps were in fact forged. The fake stamps are then stolen out of Juan and Marcos' hands by crooks on a motorcycle who are unaware of their value, destroying them by tossing them into a river.

To salvage the scheme, Juan and Marcos see if they can buy the real stamps from their owner, a widow whom they convince to sell the stamps for $250,000. If they can raise the cash, they figure they can still make a $200,000 profit. Juan initially backs out as he is hesitant to trust Marcos with his money, but at the end of the day he kicks in $50,000 on top of Marcos' $200,000 and they buy the real stamps. That night they go to the buyer's hotel, but he says he has changed his mind and will now only buy the stamps if he also gets to sleep with Marcos' sister, a hotel employee. Marcos convinces his sister Valeria to sleep with the buyer, but in exchange she makes him admit to his younger brother how he swindled him out of his inheritance. The buyer of the stamps pays with a certified check, but the bank crashes the next day, making the check worthless.

It appears that Juan and Marcos are both ruined, but the final scene is a surprise ending. Juan heads back to his warehouse, where he joins everyone except Marcos who was involved in the stamp transaction, relaxing after a successful heist. The entire time, the real scam was to screw Marcos out of $200,000 as revenge for all the times he swindled his family and his partners.

Cast

• Gastón Pauls as Juan / Sebastian
• Ricardo Darín as Marcos
• Leticia Brédice as Valeria
• Tomás Fonzi as Federico
• Graciela Tenenbaum as Convenience Store Employee
• María Mercedes Villagra as Convenience Store Employee 2
• Gabriel Correa as Convenience Store Manager
• Pochi Ducasse as Aunt
• Luis Armesto as Bar Waiter
• Ernesto Arias as Bar Manager
• Amancay Espíndola as Woman in Elevator
• Isaac Fajm as Vendor
• Jorge Noya as Aníbal
• Oscar Nuñez as Sandler
• Ignasi Abadal as Vidal Gandolfo
• Carlos Lanari as Man on Cell Phone
• Alejandro Awada as Washington

Background

The main character of the film is trying to remember the tune of a Rita Pavone song throughout the film. The song by Rita Pavone "Il Ballo Del Mattone" plays as the credits run.

Distribution

The film opened wide in Argentina on August 31, 2000. The film was screened at various film festivals, including: the Telluride Film Festival, USA; the Toronto Film Festival, Canada; the Medellín de Película, Colombia; the Portland International Film Festival, United States; the Cognac Festival du Film Policier, France; the München Fantasy Filmfest, Germany; the Norwegian International Film Festival, Norway; and others.

In the United States it opened on a limited basis on April 19, 2002.

Remake

The film's screenplay was adapted in the 2004 film Criminal. It was also used as a basis for the following Indian films: the Bollywood film Bluffmaster! (2005) and the Malayalam film Gulumal (2009).

Critical reception

Film critic Roger Ebert liked the screenplay of the film, and wrote, "And on and on, around and around, in an elegant and sly deadpan comedy. A plot, however clever, is only the clockwork; what matters is what kind of time a movie tells. Nine Queens is blessed with a gallery of well-drawn character roles, including the alcoholic mark and his two bodyguards; the avaricious widow who owns the "nine queens" and her much younger bleached-blond boyfriend, and Valeria the sister, who opposes Marcos' seamy friends and life of crime but might be willing to sleep with Gandolfo if she can share in the spoils."^[3]

The San Francisco Chronicle film critic, Edward Guthmann, also reviewed the film positively and thought the actors performed quite well, writing, "Fast-paced and unerringly surprising, Nine Queens is nicely performed by a large cast, particularly Darín (El hijo de la novia) as a goateed, less-than- perfect hoodwinker. David Mamet plowed this con-the-con turf in Heist, House of Games and The Spanish Prisoner, but Bielinsky, in his directing debut, makes it seem sassy and reinvented."^[4]

Awards

Wins

• Argentine Film Critics Association Awards: Silver Condor; Best Actor, Ricardo Darín; Best Cinematography, Marcelo Camorino; Best Director, Fabián Bielinsky; Best Editing, Sergio Zottola; Best Film; Best Original Screenplay, Fabián Bielinsky; Best Supporting Actress, Elsa Berenguer; 2001.
• Biarritz International Festival of Latin American Cinema: Best Actor, (tie) Ricardo Darín and Gastón Pauls; for Nueve reinas; 2001.
• Bogotá Film Festival: Audience Award, Fabián Bielinsky; Golden Precolumbian Circle, Best Director, Fabián Bielinsky; 2001.
• Lima Latin American Film Festival: Elcine First Prize, Fabián Bielinsky; 2001.
• Lleida Latin-American Film Festival: Audience Award, Fabián Bielinsky; Best Director, Fabián Bielinsky; 2001.
• Oslo Films from the South Festival: Audience Award, Fabián Bielinsky; 2001.
• Cognac Festival du Film Policier: Grand Prix, Fabián Bielinsky; Premiere Award, Fabián Bielinsky; 2002.
• Fantasporto: Directors' Week Award, Best Screenplay, Fabián Bielinsky; 2002.
• Portland International Film Festival: Audience Award Best First Film, Fabián Bielinsky; 2002.
• Sant Jordi Awards: Sant Jordi; Best Foreign Actor, Ricardo Darín. Also for La Fuga (2001) and El Hijo de la Novia (2001); 2002.

References

1. ^ http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=ninequeens.htm
2. ^ Nueve reinas at the Internet Movie Database.
3. ^ Ebert, Roger. Chicago Sun Times, film festival, May 10, 2002.
4. ^ Guthmann, Edward. The San Francisco Chronicle, film review, April 26, 2002.

External links

• Nueve reinas at the Internet Movie Database
• Nine Queens at Box Office Mojo
• Nueve reinas at the cinenacional.com (Spanish)