Burnt Money [Plata Quemada] **** (2000, Leonardo Sbaraglia, Eduardo Noriega, Pablo Echarri) – Classic Movie Review 12,638

The scalding Argentine film Burnt Money [Plata Quemada] is a brilliantly done 2000 real-life action thriller starring Leonardo Sbaraglia and Eduardo Noriega as gay armoured truck robbers.

The scalding Argentine film Burnt Money [Plata Quemada] is a brilliantly done 2000 real-life action thriller directed by Marcelo Piñeyro and written by Piñeyro and Marcelo Figueras. It stars Leonardo Sbaraglia and Eduardo Noriega as gay armoured truck robbers, along with Pablo Echarri, Leticia Brédice, Ricardo Bartis, and Carlos Roffé.

it is based on Ricardo Piglia’s 1997 Planeta prize-winning novel, inspired by the true story of a notorious 1965 bank robbery in Buenos Aires and the flight of the criminals to nearby Montevideo.

Leonardo Sbaraglia and Eduardo Noriega play petty thief El Nene and drifter Angel (Eduardo Noriega), who meet in the toilets of a Buenos Aires subway station, and become inseparable. Known as ‘the twins’, they are not brothers and do not look alike, but are kindred spirits to the end as lovers and partners in crime.

Their love and loyalty are sorely tested when they join a plan to hold up an armoured truck with a group of seasoned gangsters: sedative addict Cuervo (Pablo Echarri), the trio’s boss Fontana (Ricardo Bartis) and the elderly lawyer Nando (Carlos Roffé). The twins’ swaggering companion Cuervo is the film’s third main character, relentlessly heterosexual, continually taunting them, somehow fascinated by them, somehow coming between them.

A kind of Clyde and Clyde, it is very strong material, visceral and powerfully sexual, a weird, though compelling mix of challenging, depressing, exciting and uplifting. Sbaraglia and Noriega are stupendous, throwing themselves into the melée body and soul. The Sixties re-creation production is extremely impressive too.

Plata Quemada, like its characters, lives dangerously. It’s not exactly a crowd-pleaser, but, with nail-biting scenes and edge-of-seat atmosphere, it is astonishing good. You could ask ‘what’s it all about?’ But then messages are for Western Union. Does it have to making any points? It’s telling a story.

This exceptionally manly movie does also have a couple of notable roles for women: Dolores Fonzi as the luscious 16-year-old nymphet Vivi with whom Cuervo has been carrying on an affair, and Leticia Brédice as the prostitute Giselle with whom Nene starts a relationship.

Plata Quemada won the Goya Award for Best Spanish-language Foreign Film in 2001. It was partly funded by the Argentine National Institute of Cinema and Audiovisual Arts (INCAA). Encouragingly, it was a success: costing $7,000,000, it earned $44,753,475 at the box office.

Filming took place in Buenos Aires and Montevideo.

Noriega went on to star in another Piñeyro film, The Method [l Método] (2005), reuniting with Pablo Echarri.

The cast are Leonardo Sbaraglia as El Nene, Eduardo Noriega as Ángel, Pablo Echarri as El Cuervo, Leticia Brédice as Giselle, Ricardo Bartis as Fontana, Dolores Fonzi as Vivi, Carlos Roffé as Nando, Daniel Valenzuela as Tabaré, and Héctor Alterio as Losardo.

© Derek Winnert 2023 – Classic Movie Review 12,638

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