Die Missetäter

This is an incredibly original piece of cinema. It mixes philosophical tale with a bank heist which really is not the centre part of this movie. The centre part of this movie is a reflection on modern living and the insanity of the race to do things faster the pointlessness of the modern lifestyle, or something akin

The slow deliberate rhythm of this film seems to be a stumbling block for many personally I wish it carried on for a couple more hours ; it leaves us at the end with a lot of unfinished business a lot of untied loose ends

And maybe that is exactly what is needed but it could've gone so many other ways

The director and the scriptwriter (one and the same) made some choices here and they will please some and leave others guessing

It can take a while to see that something is happening that is worth watching if you stick at it you will be rewarded with a very unusual tale .... touch of Rohmer (the highest accolade possible) touch of Antonioni (also the highest accolade possible) 🙂🙃😉

A movie for thinkers romantics and dreamers ...... others will not like this i would surmise ....

For me a solid nine. Oh yes and this is definitely a comedy not hahaha but subtle and simmering ....

PS and then the penny dropped the face of Esteban Bigliardi kept reminding me of another actor and it was French-Italian Yves Montand ... so an Italian face then.

I liked the movie more as an existential story than a heist one.

The working question and the what do we really want to do with out lives is what most liked about this movie, as well as the cinematography and the music, both really good. There's not more to add to the plot than the very description of the movie.

On the other hand, a few things I did not like: It's extremely long, excessive, unnecessary. Some sequences were really looong, I don't really need to see a 5 minutes sequence of the character climbing a mountain or crossing a river. I do understand the aesthetic of this but it's counterproductive.

If you need 3 hours to tell your story, you are failing at storytelling in my opinion.

The other thing I wasn't that comfortable is with the acting. They don't act so natural, sometimes seems forced.

Wrapping it up, is a good movie if you like thoughtful olots and good landscapes, but if you cannot handle slow pacing, avoid this movie.

Warning: three hour movie incoming!

No worries, split this sprawl in two, and away we go. First half is a bank caper, the second an existential quest for idyllic existence. Nice.

Moran is a frumpy, bald bank teller, stuck in a nine to five glum who decides to shake up his life with an inside heist. His anagram Roman is an lanky bank teller who becomes an odd accomplice. Their anagram Norma is an effervescent hippie and the object of their desires. Their anagram is Namor and that has nothing to do with this film.

Moran is a man of simple means, who calculates exactly how much he needs to swipe to match his cumulative pay upon retirement, allowing escape from the rat race. Seems fair. His other calculation is three and a half years, which is the time spent in jail upon surrender with good behavior. Again, what could go wrong? Roman is reluctantly roped into the audacious plan, which surprisingly seems plausible, save a couple of hiccups.

Part two: the major hiccup: Norma. A dark-haired, free spirit prancing about the countryside with her film-maker friends, collecting eggs, riding horses, splashing in a swimming hole. Sweet. Moran and Roman fall for her in separate story lines, and it looks like we are headed for an anagram triangle confrontation. Also the bank starts to close in, and the tension begins, but when the movie should start to ramp up, it instead meanders and lingers on mundane passages instead. Sigh.

Lots of filmy things going on here, starting with the beautiful expanse of the Argentine countryside, and the savouring of life's simple pleasures. An actor plays two characters and it somehow makes sense. Split screen shots feature Roman and Moran pondering their individual fate over cigarettes in different time lines.

For a heist and love triangle film, there's a dearth of action, and not much return on your buck. This is a very small film with a very lengthy running time. Three hours may be a tall ask, but there is something weirdly captivating to savour, not just the characters, but the whole experience. "Delinquents" is quite captivating in an offbeat way.

• hipCRANK.

"Morán" (Daniel Elías) concludes that his dreary drudge at the bank over the next 25 years is only going to earn him $325k so rather than slug it out, he decides to pinch double that then ask his unwitting colleague "Román" (Esteban Bigliardi) to hide the cash whilst he does his prison sentence. That way, they can both enjoy a pleasant early retirement. The theft all goes remarkably easily and before he turns himself in, our thief goes for a bit of a road trip then goes to the police to confess all and receive the anticipated jail term. After a bit of a rocky start, and the transfer of some "protection" money, his incarceration settles down into something fairly uneventful for "Morán". The same can't be said for his friend on the outside. Though he had a cast iron alibi for the time of the robbery, his bank bosses gradually begin to think he is in some way involved - and they start to make his life a bit miserable. Despondent, he travels to a remote town to hide the loot under a boulder - and that's where he meets "Norma" (Margarita Molfino). With things not going too well at home with wife, children and his anxiety, well you can guess what happens... Now we have an interval - a rather pace-sapping exercise before part two fills us in on just what happened when "Morán" went on his journey. Small world? I wondered if there might be a clue here in the names all being anagrams of each other? We have a "Morna" too! Otherwise, this is a rather nondescript drama that takes far, far too long to get anywhere - and even when it does, it sees to have no desire to conclude with anything meaningful. Right from the beginning, it takes a swipe at all things routine and regimented, and seems be offering both men an opportunity for (eventual) freedom, but the substance to the plot is just really lacking as we rather meander through an observational and not really very interesting story that just never catches fire.

Saw this at the 2023 filmfestival Ghent (Belgium). Upfront, before seeing the film, I saw harsh words in the IMDB user reviews and positive reviews from professionals. Such contradictions never fail to attract me. Usually, the users are right when I compare it with my own preferences. The professionals, on the other hand, tend to discuss aspects that may be relevant for the state-of-the-art, but fail to interest me as a rule. This film is the exception: users are wrong, and professionals are right.

In this case, all the user reviews focused on the length and the lacking contents to warrant the indeed generous running time over 3 hours. Though I must admit I missed the last hour due other priorities, I had no problems sitting out the first 2 hours. It was an original plot to rob a bank this way. There are logical consequences to be expected, like mistakes in the execution of the heist, or wrongly trusting a colleague with the loot. But it all went in a different direction. I'm glad that it deviated from the expected downtrodden path (e.g., trusted colleague takes the loot and leaves for a country far away). I regret that I did not complete the full journey, contrary to aforementioned naysayers.

Maybe above text is against the rules, having not completed the full three hours, but I could not refrain from a bit of compensation against the three users who reviewed before me. Try the dive and judge for yourselves.