Nine Queens

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

As tricky and satisfying as any of David Mamet's airless cinematic shell games. Mamet's films are all plot and no atmosphere; this one has a squalid, urban-greed-meets-the-gutter mood that lends its filigreed cleverness an unusually resonant kick.

Los Angeles Times Kevin Thomas

Deliciously funny and fiendishly clever con-man comedy that begins on a note of ingenuity that it then sustains with the tension of a high-wire act.

The New York Times Stephen Holden

The kind of movie that seduces you into becoming putty in its manipulative card-sharking hands and making you enjoy being taken in by its shameless contrivance.

Variety Todd McCarthy

A seductively structured and superbly acted suspenser that breathtakingly piles swindle upon scam without giving away the game until the very end.

Washington Post Michael O'Sullivan

Wickedly clever drama.

Washington Post Stephen Hunter

When you think you've figured out Bielinsky's great game, that's when you're in the most trouble: He's the con, and you're just the mark.

Boston Globe Jonathan Perry

Elaborately layered movie about schemes and more schemes that pile up faster than chips on a blackjack table. The other half is realizing, about halfway through the film, that you won't figure it out until it's over.

New York Daily News Jack Mathews

Clever, compelling, funny and unpredictable, and it has a lollapa-looza of an ending.

Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman

Has more twists than the Pacific Coast Highway and more layers than a stack of silver-dollar pancakes. If you can wrap your mind around one unlikely condition, the picture provides unalloyed pleasure for connoisseurs of cinematic con artists.

Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey

Bielinsky's movie builds like a poker game in which the players, having invested everything, cannot afford to fold.

Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington

Two suggestions as you watch it: Never take anything for granted, and keep your hand on your wallet as you leave the theater.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Sean Axmaker

It may not keep you guessing to the end, but there are enough surprises and wry revelations, right down to the last play, to make this a most satisfying cinematic confidence game.

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

An accomplished and enjoyable Spanish-language debut feature by Fabían Bielinsky.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

Leaves you feeling tense and terrific. It's fun to be fooled.

Salon.com Jeff Stark

If the movie isn't true, it's at least true to itself. When Nine Queens spirals out of the realm of believability, we've already been won over enough that we don't care.

Chicago Reader Ronnie Scheib

The actors are charismatic, particularly Ricardo Darin.

New Times (L.A.) Robert Wilonsky

Here it is -- another double cross for which you will, and should, hand over your few grubby bucks.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Keith Phipps

Bielinsky's debut is a fine con picture, but at its best, it achieves even more, presenting the profession as a lifestyle with almost existential ramifications.

LA Weekly Paul Malcolm

Writer-director Fabián Bielinsky's devilish Nine Queens serves as further evidence that Argentina's film industry is at the forefront of a resurgent Latin American cinema.

New York Magazine Peter Rainer

If Nine Queens were a great film, instead of just a very good one, this rottenness would be so pervasive that it would burst the bounds of the plot; it would make us shudder.

New York Post Lou Lumenick

It would be a crime in itself to reveal the surprises of Nine Queens, which provides two solid hours of corking entertainment.

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

This cleverly structured Argentine heist movie isn't as original or ingenious as it tries to be, but it's fun watching the chicanery veer down one unexpected pathway after another.

San Francisco Chronicle Edward Guthmann

Fast-paced and unerringly surprising.

Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez

But for all the duplicitous minds playing games with each other on the screen, Nine Queens' best con artist turns out to be Bielinsky himself -- and his target is the audience.

USA Today Claudia Puig

If you want a brain puzzler that will ensure a lively conversation on the way home, Nine Queens is the real deal.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

A con within a con within a con. There comes a time when we think we've gotten to the bottom, and then the floor gets pulled out again and we fall another level.

Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow

The movie may be Nine Queens, but it slakes your thirst for surprises and thrills because of its Nine Jokers.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Liam Lacey

Often more ingenious in appearance than fact. The hunter-gets-captured-by-the-game scenario is predictable and the sequence of shell games does not, when reconsidered, actually add up.

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

Bielinsky's feature debut is a smart, enormously entertaining thriller whose preposterous conclusion in no way diminishes the fun of getting there.

Village Voice Michael Atkinson

Has a customarily jovial air but a deficit of flim-flam inventiveness.