Wie schon bei George Roy Hills unerreichtem Klassiker von 1973 beginnt das Spiel der kleinen Straßengauner alles andere als mit Pauken und Trompeten.

Zufällig beobachtet der routinierte Kleintaschenkriminelle Marco (Ricardo Darín) seinen jungen Kollegen Juan (Gastón Pauls) wie dieser bei einem lächerlichen Trick auffliegt. Kurzerhand hilft er dem dilettantischen Rookie aus der Patsche, indem er sich als Polizist ausgibt und nimmt den unerfahrenen Schützling unter seine Fittiche. Nach anfänglichem Misstrauen auf Seiten des Youngsters wird der Vormittag genutzt um das Repertoire aufzupeppen – bis das neue Dream Team plötzlich vor dem Coup ihres Lebens steht.

Damit beginnt ein ‘millionenschweres’ Katz- und Mausspiel dessen meisterliches Finale seinesgleichen sucht.

Ein echter Überraschungshit, der sich hier ins Programm geschmuggelt hat! Cleveres Kino, mit augenzwinkernden Seitenhieben auf die argentinische Wirtschaftskrise.

A seductively structured and superbly acted suspenser that breathtakingly piles swindle upon scam without giving away the game until the very end... A must see for the MEMENTO and AMORES PERROS constituencies.” Variety
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As the film opens, Marcos watches Juan carry off a perfectly executed but ultimately Mickey-Mouse bill-changing swindle in a convenience store, only to step in and pretend to arrest him when the overeager Juan gets caught by the manager trying to pull off the same trick twice. After Marcos drags Juan outside to safety, revealing the plastic squirt gun he had tucked into his waistband for effect back at the store, Marcos promptly proposes that the two team up. The older man, as it happens, has recently lost his partner, and he also thinks he can teach the kid a move or two.

As he's soon to learn, the neophyte could have a lesson for the master as well.
After part of a day spent ripping people off for small change - sometimes singly, sometimes in tandem, and all the while sizing up each other's strengths and weaknesses - Marcos chances upon a former colleague named Sandler (Oscar Nuñez), a once-expert forger and now sick old man who tells the pair about a counterfeit sheet of rare and expensive postage stamps he has made, called the Nine Queens.

Marcos and Juan quickly realize that this could be the Big One and undertake to sell the fakes for what they think is serious money. How much more serious the money is than even they know becomes apparent as they wade into waters that rapidly rush over their heads, calling for both men's most agile improvisational skills to extricate themselves from one swamping wave after another.

As the stakes and danger - both physical and emotional - increase, Bielinsky keeps the audience rapt but off balance. Marcos, it comes out, has some ugly history with his sister (Leticia Bredice), a concierge who works in the hotel where their potential victim is staying, while Juan's motivation (he's driven by the goal of helping his imprisoned father) seems to occasionally cloud his judgment.

Like Marcos and Juan, the audience never really knows who's scamming whom in this beguiling game of cat and cat, until the very end. Blackly cynical and highly watchable, "Nine Queens" is a tale of honor - and a kind of sick justice - among thieves." Washington Post
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