"Ladron Que Roba A Ladron" represents a striking paradox — a foreign film that is not a foreign film. It was filmed and produced in the United States, but its heart is in Latin America. And therein lies the beauty — and significance — of the film. And, yes, the controversy, for the Spanish script is to sure to enrage anti-immigrant forces who feel the Latino "invasion" is moving to a new battlefront, the silver screen.
Yet, in a testament to the artistry of the filmmakers, the movie seems neither polemical nor groundbreaking. The Spanish script represents a technique, not a gimmick. And it allows us to enter a culture of hope and misery, faith and despair, treachery and loyalty — a culture that, whatever the language, is universal.
"Ladron Que Roba A Ladron" — "Thieves Who Steal from Thieves" — opened last weekend, and some reviewers are calling it "anti-Anglo," a charge that seems specious. Yes, the movie celebrates the immigrants, the men and women propelled by the desire for a better life. But it also celebrates the country in which that better life is possible.
If you think the film gets bogged down in messages about immigration reform, however, forget it. This is a stylish, funny movie, a Latino version of "Robin Hood" and "Ocean's 11." The real villains are immigrants who prey on other immigrants, robbing them of their money and dignity.
Moctesuma Valdez is the bad guy, an infomercial guru who deals in the hottest commodity of all — hope. He hawks "miracle" products for the poor, promising to cure their cancer, flatten their bellies, increase their, uh, sexual prowess. And, as these unsuspecting consumers empty their wallets, Valdez fattens his, keeping his millions in a vault at his mansion in Los Angeles.
Enter a band of immigrants — Mexicans, Colombians, Argentines. The amateur thieves put a twist on the American Dream, pursuing it through chicanery, not hard work. Then, again, if Valdez got his money through deceit, only deceit will get it back, right?
Do the immigrants get it back?
It would be wrong to give away the ending, but one thing is clear. The movie is so well crafted, so tense and suspenseful, that you will empathize with the immigrant thieves, whatever your position on immigration reform.
In one scene, the vault opens, and the immigrants see stacks of money, a blue glow bathing the millions in an eerie, surreal light. The shot is strangely beautiful, as breathtaking as sunset at Maui. And you think, if only for a second, that greed is good, especially if it victimizes a victimizer.
"I know I'm breaking the Fifth ... the Third ... a lot of your commandments — again," one of the thieves says, praying in a chapel before the heist.
The film, distributed by Lionsgate, opened on 300 screens nationwide, including five theaters in San Antonio.
Three hundred. Hardly "Harry Potter" numbers, but then the budget was tiny, too — "way under $2 million," the director told the Los Angeles Times.
The producers see it as the first in a series of Spanish-language films in the United States. If they maintain the quality they exhibited with their first effort, their audience will grow — and not just among Latino moviegoers. A good movie is a good movie, regardless of the subtitles.
While many of the actors in "Ladron Que Roba A Ladron" are veterans of telenovelas on Spanish-language networks, the screenwriter is a "third-generation" Mexican American from McAllen — Jose Angel Henrickson. He did not trust his Spanish, he said in an interview with National Public Radio, so he wrote the script in English. It was then translated into Spanish, only to be translated back into English for the subtitles.
If all those words traveled a circuitous route — from English to Spanish and back to English — the journey seems appropriate. It symbolizes the diversity of this nation — and the rich intermingling of the two languages.
And, one day perhaps, that diversity will become so ingrained that movies like "Ladron Que Roba A Ladron" will no longer seem revolutionary.
