Conmen Marcos and Juan team up for a once-in-a-lifetime scam to swindle a corrupt businessman with forged rare stamps the Nine Queens. In a plot with serpentine twists and a gallery of rogues, deceptions pile upon deceptions and its up to us to sort out who’s conning who. First-time director Bielinsky uses real-life Buenos Aires locations that give the film a sense of authenticity, so that we believe in a city full of hustlers and thieves taking advantage of each other and the crowd. The subsequent collapse of Argentina’s economy and the country’s financial despair has given the film a prophetic resonance.

Bielinsky deftly handles this taught thriller, moving from comedy to suspense and terror with ease and coaxing mercurial performances from Gaston Pauls (Juan) and Ricardo Darin (Marcos). Its like a Latin-American version of The Sting crossed with David Mamet’s House of Games. Derek Malcolm, The Guardian

This taut thriller is a welcome addition to the genre, cleverly plotted and nimbly acted. Tom Dawson, BBC Film Reviews

Mamet plowed this con-the-con turf in Heist, House of Games and The Spanish Prisoner, but Bielinsky, in his directing debut, makes it seem sassy and reinvented. Edward Guthman San Francisco Chronicle

Bielinsky mainly employs a handheld camera to organically capture the films environment. He also mixes in a few more daring shots, none of which feel forced or out-of-place, to inject a smart visual style to the proceedings. Warren Curry, filmcritic.com