Many Americans are still concerned about losing their jobs to hard-working and lower-paid Mexican immigrants. George Clooney and Brad Pitt may soon be counted among them. That’s because Hispanic actors Colunga and Varoni more or less play the aforementioned actors’ roles in what is essentially a low-rent, knockoff version of Ocean’s Eleven. The surprise is that Ladron Que Roba a Ladron (which roughly translates to A Thief Who Steals From a Thief) is just about as entertaining as the Clooney caper, at a fraction of the budget.
The heist plot revolves around Alejandro (Colunga) and Emilio (Varoni), two honest thieves (which in a movie like this is no contradiction) who decide to rob another thief—infomercial guru Moctesuma Valdez (Saul Lisazo), who has violated some sort of honest thieves’ ethic by selling snakewater to poor, desperate Latino immigrants. The problem is that Alejandro and Emilio are having trouble finding qualified cons to crew their operation. (The best thieves were too busy making Ocean’s Thirteen). So rather than finding criminals to portray Latino laborers in their scam, they decide to recruit actual Latino laborers to become criminals.
Thus we end up with the requisite motley crew of oddball characters, including an attractive but tomboyish mechanic, her valet-turned-getaway driver father, a mumbling electronics expert, a metrosexual muscleman and a Cuban-refugee actor who suffers occasional bouts of stage fright.
It’s amusing the way the film plays around with illegal-immigrant stereotypes. Throughout the con, the band of thieves do things like attempt to unionize immigrant workers. One funny scene even has the crew pose as janitors, pretending to not understand an English-speaking hick security guard. When he suggests they learn the language, one thief replies, “You’re in America. Why don’t you learn to speak Spanish, asshole.” But any nods to the immigration issues—geared toward the film’s Spanish-speaking target audience—are kept light and fluffy, as they should be in a lighthearted caper movie.
The plot structure, style and even music of the film are uncannily similar to Ocean’s Eleven, but as in that movie, it’s a lot of fun watching the various cons and scams play off of and enhance each other until you gradually realize what the grand design is. In the end, the plan isn’t shockingly clever, but it is extremely satisfying. George Clooney and Brad Pitt might want to consider updating their resumes.
Ladron Que Roba a Ladron
*** 1/2
Fernando Colunga, Miguel Varoni, Julie Gonzalo
Directed by Joe Menendez
Rated PG-13
Opens Friday