“The Delinquents” review: Rodrigo Moreno’s bank robbery drama ignores the usual drawbacks of the genre

Editor’s note: This review was originally published on May 29, when the film premiered at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival. The Argentinian Oscar entry hits cinemas via Mubi on Friday.

Whether it’s the flat white lighting and the faded color gradations it creates The criminals The look of a ’70s TV series, or the fact that much of it takes place on a mountain beach where apparitions are supposedly seen, hides an undercurrent of genuine weirdness in this long, complex film. The story of Rodrigo Moreno, screened in Cannes in the Un Certain Regard section for innovative or personal films, begins with a bank robbery. The ease with which this crime is committed is strange in itself: Moran (Daniel Elias) simply goes into the bank vault, puts a stack of US dollars in his gym bag and goes home. Not what you expect from a heist movie, but here it is. Over the next three hours, Moreno will deconstruct the genre with the calm concentration of a safe picking apart a lock.

Moran works at a large bank in Cordoba, Argentina. It’s a gloomy office where everyone seems very conscientious. He doesn’t have to crack anything; He only has to choose his time when one colleague is at the doctor and the other has an early day. He counts the money as soon as he receives it. He doesn’t want everything; He calculated how much he would earn over the next twenty years and takes exactly that amount for himself and the same amount for Roman (Esteban Bigliardi), the colleague he hopes will become an accomplice. The surveillance camera catches him in the act. It’s part of the plan. In a day or two he will confess to the crime after giving Roman the money to hide in his chosen hideout. Based on his research on the sentence, he estimates he will have to serve a little more than three years. Then life begins again.

Roman is taken aback as Moran approaches him. Their intimacy does not go beyond the occasional beer after work. But somehow he slips in his tracks, takes the sports bag, hides it in the closet and tries to appear neutral when the bank managers begin their investigation. The middle hour of the film is about his journey to the remote, rocky mountainside next to a river where Moran instructed him to keep the money. “It’s beautiful there; You’ll love it,” Moran says, as if recommending a spot for a future picnic.

In fact, he meets some picnickers: a man and two women who, over the lunch they encouraged him, tell him that they are making a film about gardens. It turns out to be an endless, informal project that does little more than organize her days; There are no gardens in the Pampas, but they decided that little wildflowers were just as interesting. They are lotus eaters who enjoy humble pleasures and think nothing of spending a day’s work by the river drinking wine and playing word games. Roman, who has spent his entire adult life at the bar, is pleasantly numb to their indulgent lifestyle. When the beautiful Norma (Margarita Molfino) urges him to stay, he succumbs to the moment, his partner at home forgotten and the terrible burden of crime left on the hill.

The conventions of the genre suggest that Norma herself would have to be a conniving thief, or that Roman would have to be caught up in an elaborate, long-term con involving everyone else. A gun would have to be drawn or there would have to be a police chase. Every now and then the story veers slightly towards such pivotal moments, but then goes back down a tortuous path. A surprise awaits, but it’s a personal story from the past that sheds light on why Moran chose this inconvenient hiding place.

Moran serves his time in prison, where he suddenly discovers his love for modern poetry. Even the prison boss Garrincha – played by the same actor who plays the bank’s short-tempered manager German de Silva in one of Moreno’s many subtle formal challenges to the way we read the film – is convinced when Moran appears on the training site. hard. Meanwhile, back at the bank, a detective from headquarters is convinced that Roman had something to do with the theft. Will they discover him? Of course not. That would definitely put the story in the conventional danger zone, but Moreno has an entirely different goal.

Just like the thieves, who are ultimately not interested in money. They don’t want to buy boats or live big in the meat pots of Rio. They are simply unfulfilled, somewhat boring middle-aged men who want to buy themselves a new life. Which they do, but again not in the way you would expect. Rodrigo Moreno is a smart customer. The criminals presents a challenge at the box office – a three-hour film that refuses to deliver on the usual genre perks – but the director should be at the top of everyone’s must-see list.

Title: The criminals
Distributor: Mubi
Release date: October 20, 2023
Director-Screenwriter: Rodrigo Moreno
Form: Daniel Elias, Esteban Bigliardi, Margarita Molfino, German De Silva, Laura Paredes, Mariana Chaud, Cecilia Rainero, Javier Zoro Sutton, Gabriela Saidón
Time: 3 hours 9 minutes