Author: Jonathan

A while ago, I saw a trailer on a DVD for Ladrón Que Roba a Ladrón and immediately thought, “That looks like a Latino Ocean’s 11.” Turns out I was wrong. It’s more like a Latino Ocean’s 13. For me, that’s a very good thing.

The plot revolves around two thieves in L.A., Emilio, who is recently returned to the U.S. by way of a coyote, and Alejandro, a successful DVD pirate. The two, played by Miguel Varoni and Fernando Colunga, are working on a plan to rob Moctesuma Valdez (Saúl Lisazo), a millionaire infomercial guru who made his fortune selling bogus miracle cures to Latinos. When their usual crew proves unavailable or unwilling, Alejandro and Emilio recruit a group of fellow immigrants to help with the heist.

The opening scene establishes what a sleaze ball Valdez is, and also helps distinguish Ladrón from the Ocean’s series. Ocean’s 11 rarely had anything deeper than the heist going for it. In theory, Ocean’s 13 was about punishment for breaking The Code (“You shook Sinatra’s hand!”), but it was really all about the money, in the end. Ladrón mixes social commentary in with the heist, and it gives the picture a satisfying weight.

Granted, the movie does get a little heavy handed in places, and it’s extremely L.A.-centric, but that never detracted from my overall enjoyment of the movie. The message is couched within an immigrant’s point of view, but the themes are universal. The characters feel ignored, denigrated and exploited, and anyone who’s worked retail or food service can relate.

It also helps that the characters are a lot of fun. Rafa, the middle-aged, lead-footed valet. Rafaela, his hot-headed, tomboyish daughter. Miguelito, a Cuban-refugee, wannabe actor. Anival, a pretty-boy, smarter-than-he-looks construction worker. None of them are particularly deep characters, but they’re all a lot of fun. The actors play their characters with such enthusiasm and humor, it’s infectious. Even Moctezuma is despicable and intimidating in the best of ways.

Ladrón Que Roba a Ladrón isn’t going to win any awards or start any revolutions, but it’s a lot of fun with just enough weight to feel substantial. If you enjoy heist movies at all, check this one out.

DVD Review Text Reviews

Movie Review: 9 Songs

Remove the live concert footage and the nonessential (I hesitate to call them gratuitous) sex scenes, and 9 Songs ceases to be a movie and becomes a film short. There’s not a lot of story here. I can’t even call it a character study, because we barely learn anything about Matt and Lisa, the couple around whose relationship the movie revolves.

9 Songs, written and directed by Michael Winterbottom, is more of a love-affair snapshot, a memory vaguely explained via brief bits of voice-over. This shouldn’t be taken necessarily as a complaint. The boy-meets-girl story is one that can survive some extreme paring. Still, you get the sense that you’re not seeing anything close to the full picture. And if you’re the kind of person who likes a little conflict in your stories, there is practically none here.

Really, writing about the story is rough. Matt, played by Kieran O’Brien, is a geologist working on climate studies in the Antarctic. He fills his hours mulling over Lisa, played by Margo Stilley, an American foreign-exchange student he met at a concert in England. As the movie progresses, the couple goes to a lot of concerts and has a lot of sex. We never see them fight. We barely even see them have conversations. There is one moment in a strip club that provides some tension, but even that is mild, at best, and then gone.

Part of me wants to write this movie off, call it boring, slow and uninspired. Move on to bigger and better things. Pick an easier movie to review. The other part of me, though, sees something more here. There’s an honesty to the relationship, a reality that pervades the entire movie that I can’t just discount.

Certainly, it’s not difficult to see where some of that feeling of reality comes from. All of the concert footage is live. So are all of the sex scenes. This is pretty raw, and not for the easily offended. There is no fade-to-black, or conveniently placed shrubs. I’ll spare you the details, but know that the movie doesn’t.

There’s more to it than that, though. The actors pull off a kind of quiet comfort that you expect from a couple who’s been together a while. And the sex scenes are more than just physically revealing. A few of them give more insight into Lisa’s character than all of the dialogue combined. Unfortunately, not all of them do, and most drag on far too long.

Ultimately, I feel like this is a movie that needs to have papers written about it. Symbolism and hidden truths, philosophy and psychology, lit and art theory. Throw all that at the movie, but I wouldn’t call it entertainment. Watch it to see if real sex adds to or detracts from a movie. Watch it to see if you agree with how much story a narrative can have stripped away. Watch it with a purpose in mind, because the film doesn’t provide you with one.

Tags 9 Songs, Kieran O'Brien, Margo Stilley, Michael Winterbottom

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