Y tu Luna también: Criminal (2004, R)

Before we get into it, a couple exciting things. First, Andor season 2 is actually, finally imminent! April 22 feels so far away, but at least it’s a date. The 10-second clip and first-look images that have been released have me champing at the bit. And second, how on Earth did I miss that Diego Luna is gonna be playing Valentin in the movie musical adaptation of Kiss of the Spider-Woman?!? His first musical role since The Book of Life and his first live-action musical role ever??? I only found out that this project exists, and I’m already waiting for it with bated breath! (Also, Jennifer Lopez as Aurora sounds just delicious.)

Okay, onto your regularly scheduled review.

I never quite know what to expect from Diego Luna’s older movies. They can be all over the place in terms of quality—I’ve watched a number that are iffy at best, and adding insult to injury, some of those barely feature him at all. So I go into a lot of these films with an air of caution. On some level, Criminal is a bit basic and tries too hard in places, but I ultimately came away really liking it.

One day, out-for-himself conman Richard Gaddis takes notice of Rodrigo, a young man trying to pull some simple cons in a casino. He gets Rodrigo out of a tight spot and, because he’s currently without a partner, decides to take the kid for a test run. Richard offers Rodrigo the chance to learn some tricks from him, but their one day of training-wheels-level cons takes a turn when a gigantic opportunity falls into Richard’s lap.

This is an American remake of an Argentine film called Nine Queens. I haven’t seen that movie, so I don’t know how well this adaptation compares, but I thought it was a good time. It’s fun to watch Richard teach Rodrigo the tools of his trade, even if the script lays on the “world-weary crook mentor who trusts no one” routine pretty thick sometimes. And once the central scam of the film gets underway, we see a nice mix of expertise, complications, and pivots. Things do get a bit convoluted, but for the most part, it all seems to hold together.

John C. Reilly isn’t an actor I’d have thought of for a character like Richard, but it mostly works. While he’s not able to sell the hokiest of the dialogue, he gives off the right air for the sort of cons Richard pulls—he generally presents himself as a businessman, solid but not overly flashy, and Reilly plays the character with just enough slickness that you can never quite tell where he stands. Maggie Gyllenhaal is effective as his sister Valerie, who wants to keep her crook brother’s business far away from the fancy hotel where she works, and Peter Mullan does a nice job as William Hannigan, the wealthy tycoon that Richard sets his sights on (who, of course, just so happens to be staying at Valerie’s hotel.) Side note: I wouldn’t quite consider Mullan a Hey It’s That Guy!, because he’s never instantly recognizable to me. But pretty much every time I see him pop up in a film, I feel the need to look him up on IMDb, not just because I can tell I’ve seen him before, but because he’s so good. The film also features brief appearances from Enrico Colantoni and Michael Shannon.

Luna plays Rodrigo, who’s firmly the second lead of the film. This would’ve been just a few years after Y tu mamá también, when Hollywood had taken some interest in him, and even if the movie itself is a bit more middle-of-the-pack, this is a perfectly respectable role for him, and he does a nice job with it. The film revolves around the dynamic between Richard and Rodrigo. Richard is a career criminal who looks at con artistry as more than just a way to make money: it’s a philosophy, a way of life. By turns, Rodrigo explains that he’s just dipping his toe into this world because he needs money quick to help pay the loan sharks who are leaning on his father. Richard thinks Rodrigo gets too squeamish about certain aspects of the work, like not wanting to con an old lady, and he doesn’t appreciate the judgmental eye he sometimes gives. And Rodrigo is definitely wary of Richard—I can see the faintest glimmer of Cassian’s guarded watchfulness on Andor in this role—but at the same time, when he sees one of Richard’s cons comes together, he kind of lights up.

And for all that Richard frames himself as the jaded all-knowing teacher and Rodrigo as the wet-behind-the-ears novice who doesn’t have the stomach to be a “real” conman, Rodrigo shows real talent for the work. Richard tells him he “thinks too much” and says that his only real asset is that “you look like a nice guy,” but Rodrigo bails him out more than once, taking advantage of his keen sense of observation (hehe, Cassian vibes again!) to improvise on the spot.

Recommend?

In General – Maybe. It’s an entertaining conman flick with some good performances, and I think it sticks the landing pretty well.

Diego Luna – Yes. This is a good role for him, and he does a great job with it.

Warnings

Language, scenes of violence, drinking/smoking/drug references, sexual references (including sexual harassment,) and thematic elements.

Y tu Luna también: Contraband (2012, R)

I wasn’t a fan of this one. Didn’t care for the plot or how some of the major characters were depicted, and to add insult to injury, Diego Luna is only in it for like 15 minutes tops.

Chris has gotten out of the smuggling game, gone straight with a legitimate construction business, but he’s pulled back in to help out his family. A clumsy mistake put his brother-in-law in deep with a drug lord, and the only way to pay his debts is for Chris to get a big score real fast. He assembles a crew and makes plans to get to Panama to collect their product.

For starters, Chris is a “good” smuggler, an honorable former criminal who’s only getting back in the game to save his brother-in-law’s ass. He’s a salt-of-the-earth working-class white guy, and he’s so adamant about not smuggling drugs that he makes the job a thousand times more complicated for the whole crew by insisting on collecting a crapload of counterfeit bills instead. Even when the job inevitably goes off the rails, he risks everybody to stay on target instead of pivoting to a more lucrative product that’s more feasible to smuggle. And it’s like, good for you, I guess? If Chris was faced with the Trolley Problem, he definitely wouldn’t pull the lever.

He's also a smuggling mastermind/jack of all trades—even though he specifically puts together a group of guys with different skill sets, he still winds up doing pretty much everything, knowing better than most members of his crew. Protagonists like him get tiring for me. I’d much rather see a leader who leans on the advice and skills of those around them than one who has the answer for everything.

Although Chris and his guys aren’t setting out to rob anybody, just transport illicit bills, the main action still has a lot of the beats of a standard heist movie, but it lacks the fun and inventiveness of some of my favorite examples of that genre. The film takes itself too seriously, and the end result is a bit of a slog.

Mark Wahlberg plays Chris, who feels so archetypal and bland that there’s not much to hang onto. (Side note: I know they were from over 30 years ago, but Wahlberg’s history of racist attacks is still worth mentioning.) His wife Kate is played, thanklessly, by Kate Beckinsale—this is a depressing, throwaway role that makes me feel a little bad for Beckinsale to see her in it. Ben Foster plays Chris’s friend Sebastian, who handles things stateside while Chris is in Panama. This role is squarely up Foster’s alley, and he plays it well. Giovanni Ribisi is effective as the menacing drug lord Briggs, while J.K. Simmons gets the job done as the captain of the ship Chris and his guys are hitching a ride on.

Luna plays Gonzalo, who’s taken over operation of the gang Chris’s crew is getting their counterfeit bills from. Having to deal directly with the boss is one of the ways the job gets off track in the first place, and that boss being Gonzalo is another—he’s recently deposed the gang’s former leader, who Chris had a good history with, and he’s not as willing to play ball.

Gonzalo’s reputation literally proceeds him, with Chris referring to him as “that little shit” and “a little fucking punk,” while one of his lackeys warns him that Gonzalo has been “acting crazy.” Basically, everything in the build-up tells us we’re about to meet the Scary Panamanian Crime Lord.

In light of that, the character we finally meet is less than a loose cannon than I was expecting. He’s definitely dangerous, but he doesn’t have the manic volatility of, say, Tuco on Breaking Bad or Moriarty on Sherlock. Instead, Luna’s performance is actually kind of muted/flat, his face a hard mask of blankness. Gonzalo says lines like, “We fed [my predecessor] to the wolves,” and he does have actual wolves on the premises, but with the air of someone who doesn’t really care about it. The only thing he really seems to be invested in is sticking it to everyone who underestimated him before his takeover.

I’m not sure what to make of that. In a film with a lot of clichés, it’s unexpected, so that’s interesting. On the whole, though, it’s not a role worth Luna’s talents. He gets a better deal than Beckinsale, but it’s still not great.

Recommend?

In General – I wouldn’t. Go for a fun heist movie with a charming/messy protagonist over this one.

Diego Luna – Naw. The role calls for so little, and he’s not in the film long enough to make it worthwhile.

Warnings

Violence, language, drinking/drug references, sexual references, and lazy treatment of female and Latino characters.

Six of Crows (2015)

Let’s go! I enjoyed the Shadow and Bone trilogy more than I necessarily expected I would, but this book was sitting there the whole time, waiting for me to get through Alina’s story. As soon as I finished Ruin and Rising, I was like, “Yes, let’s get into all the complex heists and gang rivalries and tragic backstories! I am here for it!” Six of Crows does not disappoint on that score.

Kaz, a ruthless young lieutenant in the gang the Dregs, makes waves in the crime-and-pleasure-filled city of Ketterdam. When one of the wealthy merchant class offers Kaz an incredible payout for a nearly-unthinkable heist, Kaz assembles his best people for the job: Inej the acrobatic indentured spy, Jesper the sharpshooting gambler, Nina the vivacious Grisha Heartrender, Matthias the zealous convict with vital intel, and Wylas the aristocratic fledgling explosives expert. Everyone has their part to play in scoring one of the biggest prizes Ketterdam’s ever seen, but there are countless opportunities for everything to go sideways.

Personally, I think following the Shadow and Bone trilogy with the Six of Crows duology was a smart move. There’s one more duology in the series that’s more closely tied to the events and characters of the original trilogy, but this is a completely new story with all new characters set in a different locale. While there are plenty of references to Ravka and other countries we’re familiar with from the first three books, along with allusions to Alina and some of the things she did, this book greatly expands the storytelling possibilities within the initial world Leigh Bardugo created. Even with things we’re already very familiar with, like Grisha power or the militantly anti-Grisha Fjerdans, Six of Crows gives us new insights and developments to explore.

It’s also just an entirely different sensibility. The Shadow and Bone trilogy is an old-fashioned Chosen One narrative, an epic in which the literal fate of the world rests on one teenage girl who’s only recently discovered how super-special she is. By contrast, Six of Crows is 100% a heist adventure, full of likable crooks, moral complexity, and meticulous strategies that require improvisation at the last minute when things go pear-shaped. The best analogy I can think of here is Star Wars: Shadow and Bone is the original trilogy, the epic hero’s tale, while Six of Crows is The Mandalorian, a story set within the same world but different in tone and tenor, less plugged in to the grander mythology.

A well-done heist story always makes for a good time, and this one is fun and exciting. We’ve got good suspense, both in terms of whether all our heroes will survive and just how far they’ll go to achieve their aims, and Kaz’s scheming is just the right mix of watertight and adapting-on-the-fly. Everyone’s unique skills are called on at various points in the story, everyone proves a liability at least once, and some of the characters have evolving feelings over whether it’s right to do the heist at all.

And then there are the characters. After watching Shadow and Bone, I was a little surprised to have a sextet instead of a trio, but given that the book is called Six of Crows, it obviously fits. Kaz, Inej, and Jesper remain my favorites, and they’re definitely the core three of the group, the ones with the most-established relationships and the longest tenure in the Dregs. It’s a genuine pleasure to watch them scheme together, argue, and lean on one another. But Nina and Matthias, whose backstory is shared in season one of the TV show, add an interesting dynamic to the group too. In particular, Matthias comes from a deeply-formative and disciplined religious/military background that puts him at odds with the slippery and flexible morality of his criminal acquaintances. And Wylus is the only one not yet introduced on the show, but after some initial, “Who’s this guy and why should I care?” reactions in the earlier chapters, I came to enjoy him well enough. (Still, Kaz, Inej, and Jesper for life.) The characters and the relationships between them fuel the snappy comedic dialogue and the tragic personal histories in organic ways, bringing both humor and pathos effectively.

I’ll end on a quick PSA: if you read Six of Crows, I would highly recommend having its sequel, The Crooked Kingdom, on hand before you finish it. While Bardugo doesn’t quite end on a Suzanne Collins-level cliffhanger, it’s definitely an ending that leaves you wanting to find out what happens next!

Warnings

Violence (including references to sexual abuse,) sexual references, language, drinking, disturbing imagery, and strong thematic elements (including slavery and prostitution.)

Hustlers (2019, R)

Sometimes, comparisons between unrelated movies come into my head and I’m unable to shake those notions. Watching this film, I thought, “I bet this is the kind of movie that Ocean’s 8 wanted to be.” That maybe isn’t fair to Ocean’s 8, but it’s what came to mind when I saw Hustlers. While I enjoyed the former in spite of itself somewhat, the latter is just a great movie.

Inspired by a true story, Hustlers follows a group of New York strippers who decide to take matters into their own hands. Following the Wall Street crash of 2008, the recession of course hits everywhere, but these women have it particularly hard, since most of their best-paying clientele were finance guys who imploded in the crash. The group, led by Ramona and Destiny, concoct a scheme to take men who broke the economy and got away unscathed, and milk them for all they’re worth.

Just a great film all around. Both engaging and entertaining, populated by characters who do plenty of bad things for some sympathetic reasons. You don’t exactly root for them in their crimes – while some of what they do is highly understandable, other elements of the operation really give you pause – but you’re invested in seeing where this journey takes them. I love, the ingenuity they bring to developing their scheme, the way they roll with the punches of complications that arise, and how the relationships between them change as they get in deeper and deeper.

I really like a lot of the little details about the ins and outs of being a stripper. There’s the exploitation, of course (the predatory owners who skim the women’s earnings, the casual insults and demands they hear from patrons,) but there’s a lot more, showing numerous sides of that line of work. Some of these details include the hassles of dating life (jealous boyfriends, wanting to do anything other than be sexy on your night off) and the tools of the trade (I love the scene of Ramona tutoring Destiny on various moves on the pole, followed by a scene of another woman teaching her the finer points of the lap dance.)

Even better, though, are the complex relationships between the major characters. At the head of the pack are Destiny and Ramona – their relationship is many things, and no matter what direction the film takes it in, it’s always powerful. But really, the whole group is great, a kind of found family who care about and look out for each other but who also argue, disagree, and let each other down. All my favorite scenes in the movie involve these central relationships, nothing more or less than depictions of the closeness between them.

Fine cast, headed by Constance Wu as Destiny and Jennifer Lopez as Ramona. Both are excellent individually and even better together, lighting up the screen in their shared scenes. Rounding out the main crew is Keke Palmer (who I previously knew best as the title character in Akeelah and the Bee, so she’s grown up a lot since then!) and Lili Reinhart (Betty Cooper herself,) and Julia Stiles plays a supporting role as the reporter who wrote the article that inspired the film.

Warnings

Sexual content (including nudity,) language, drinking/smoking/drug use, and thematic elements.