The Delinquents

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.

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.

Let me begin by noting that I am not a big fan of fast moving films. I can handle slow pace and thoughtful scenic shots. But I signed in to this site primarily to give a thumbs up to the review by eviltrav above. That review precisely gets at what is wrong with this film. I suppose that movie critics have 3 hours to spend on a film like this, but I do not. Lots of subplots that go nowhere, lots of lengthy scenes of minor characters doing useless things which do nothing to develop their character, and long slow panning shots to nowhere. Too bad, because the plot device is a clever one, the characters are well developed at the beginning of the film, and the acting is good. The writing is pretty good for the first half and then it just falls apart. The director clearly fell in love with some of his footage and just couldn't bear to edit it.

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.

Filmmaker Rodrigo Moreno creates a three-hour long heist drama with some interesting dynamics and concepts explored within the setting of the narrative and while Moreno does provide some strong elements, it isn't strong enough to withhold the entire movie.

Throughout, the camerawork, production and the sound design is pretty good as it helps capture the environment and tone. Many of the performances from the cast members are pretty good with some interesting dialogue and concepts explored. Moreno's direction is pretty solid as well. The narrative is a slow-burn heist drama movie that explores different themes including bank robbery, capitalism, freedom and so forth and the narrative does explore some of these concepts well but at the same time, not so well. Because the structure of the narrative feels uneven as if the narrative is a bit lost on what it is trying to be or wanting to tell.

Due to the uneven structure, it causes the story to feel a bit messy as it the first 1-hour is amazing but the rest feels a little convoluted or a bit lost. Which causes the run-time to feel a little exhausting and unfulfilling. There are some good soundtrack choices, some of the characters are interesting but some could have been explored a bit more.

Overall, Moreno definitely has a vision with this movie and it's a decent achievement from him and Argentinian cinema. But it could be stronger.