The Delinquents – Film Review
by Frank L.

Director – Rodrigo Moreno
Writer – Rodrigo Moreno
Stars – Daniel Elías, Esteban Bigliardi, Margarita Molfino

This is all about an insider-job bank robbery. The principle is simple. A bank employee who is fed up with his mundane job decides to steal about 650k from his bank, hide it in an unlikely location and when or if challenged admit to the crime. His mandatory sentence will be three years. He will serve his time and when he gets out share the hidden loot with his accomplice. If he works honestly in the bank he would earn the same amount of money over the ensuing 25 years in a job which he loathes. There is therefore a certain perverse logic to the scheme.

Moran (Daniel Elias) is the employee in a bank in Buenos Aires.  Roman (Esteban Bigliardi) is his accomplice. While the money is stolen at the beginning the bank’s discovery of it and then its inquiries, as to who the culprit is, is slow. The slow pace is alleviated by enjoyable character performances by the bank manager and the hard-faced female investigator from head office. Roman brings the money to a remote and beautiful spot and gets involved with three filmmakers, in particular Norma (Margarita Molfino). The names of the three main characters are entwined in that each of them is an anagram of the other two. Norma represents freedom and a way of life that is not obtainable by Roman nor indeed by Moran when he subsequently meets her.

While the slow pace of the movie is initially enchanting as it lingers on the splendid architecture of Buenos Aires it certainly begins to pall as the investigation meanders on as to who stole the money. By the time  Roman brings the loot to the remote and beautiful spot the film is moving at a glacially slow pace. No doubt Moreno intended this to be the case confirming the saying that a watched kettle never boils. Three and a half years is a long time when you are stuck behind bars. The “imprisonment” created by Moran’s mundane job pales into insignificance with the horrors of his actual imprisonment behind bars in the company of very nasty prisoners.

It seems Moreno is trying to draw some parallel between the entrapment of so many in dull jobs with that of real prisoners confined by actual imprisonment. It may be there is a valid point to be made at some level.  However, the three-hour duration of the film results in an almost inevitable lack of concentration as the story meanders forward.  What does help to keep the concentration alive to an extent is the cinematography.