From fade in to roll credits, Nine Queens gives you little chance to draw breath. It's such an exhilarating twister of a film with so many switches and double-crosses that you don't really know where you stand until the very final frame - after which you'll want to watch it again.

From Argentine writer-director Fabián Bielinsky, this is a film about 24 hours in the lives of two skilled con-artists (not, thank God, nine OUDS hacks) - the young and affable Juan and the older, more ruthless Marcos. In the course of that day, they stumble upon a once-in-a-lifetime deal when a retired forger enlists them to sell a fake set of extremely valuable rare stamps, known (to those philatelists in the know) as The Nine Queens. Glorious chaos ensues.

On it's original release, Nine Queens rode the crest of what was championed by British film critics as a Latin-American millennial renaissance, along with Amores Perros and Y Tu Mama Tambien. Although the idea of the rebirth of Latin-American cinema wrongly implies that it somehow died, the intelligence of Bielinsky's film certainly earns its place amongst the best in what is known
pretentiously as 'World (as opposed to.?) Cinema'.

Convoluted, but never confusing; stylish but never pointlessly stylised, Bielinsky's film is also careful to give three dimensions (and as many angles) to every character. And like Hill's The Sting, although Nine Queens tricks you, it's careful never to cheat you. Don't miss what could be your last chance to see this on the big screen.

Sean Gray