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HEROIC LOSERS (2021)
Starring Ricardo Darín, Luis Brandoni, Chino Darín, Verónica Llinás, Daniel Aráoz, Carlos Belloso, Rita Cortese, Andrés Parra, Marco Antonio Caponi and Guillermo Jacubowicz. Directed by Sebastián Borensztein.

The year is 2001, and Argentina is hitting the lowest point in its great depression. His glory days far behind him, retired soccer star Fermín now runs a service station in a sleepy provincial town. Hoping to pull his family and their community out of decline, Fermín seeks to convert some abandoned grain silos into a viable storage facility. He convinces friends to invest in the cooperative, but is railroaded by a conniving bank manager into placing their cash into a savings account just as the banks are about to be frozen by the government, rendering their money useless and their plans quashed.

For a time things seem only to get worse, until rumours spread of a secret depository containing the cooperative’s pilfered cash and much, much more. With Fermín as their Robin Hood–esque leader, the group conspires to infiltrate the cache, but it’s going to take some serious resolve, a little inspiration, and a lot of luck to pull off this honest-person heist.

REVIEWS Heroic Losers - Enjoyable working-class heist hijinks from Argentina

NERUDA (2017)
Starring Gael García Bernal, Luis Gnecco, Mercedes Morán, Alfredo Castro, Michael Silva, Pablo Derqui, Alejandro Goic, Antonia Zegers, Marcelo Alonso and Héctor Noguera. Directed by Pablo Larraín.

It’s 1948, and the Cold War has reached Chile. Following the President’s outlawing of communism, Neruda (played by Luis Gnecco, bearing a remarkable likeness) and his artist wife Delia (Mercedes Morán) are forced into hiding. Beloved by the populace, they slip underground and are pursued by incompetent, vainglorious police inspector Oscar Peluchonneau (the superb Gael Garcia Bernal), hoping to make a name for himself by capturing the country’s most infamous fugitive.

Whilst life on the run holds little charm for the cultured and hedonistic Neruda, he uses the opportunity to reinvent his work and life, leaving clues for his pursuer designed to make their game of cat-and-mouse even more dangerous and thrilling. Thwarting Peluchonneau at every turn, it’s almost as if the detective is the man Neruda would have written to chase himself...

REVIEWS Neruda - A philosophical snoozefest