The Delinquents (2023, Rodrigo Moreno) (Patreon)

59/100

To suggest that perhaps The Delinquents didn't need to be three hours long feels like stepping right into its trap. After all, this is a film that kicks off with the least exciting bank robbery in cinema history (basically Marion Crane in Psycho with all the tension removed) and then makes the nearly $500,000 thereby stolen all but irrelevant; it's really a story about stealing back the time that's robbed from most of us by our workaday existence, and thus "Get on with it already" seems like the complaint of someone who fundamentally Did Not Get It. All the same, there's a fair hunk of deadwood here—related, I think, to Moreno's regrettable penchant for cuteness. I can shrug off the fact that most of the main characters—Ramón, Norma, Morán, Román, freakin' Morna—have names that are all anagrams of each other, and just sighed a little at the clip of Bresson's L'Argent seen at one point. But the entire subplot involving Morán being shaken down in prison serves no function other than to let one actor play two thematically equivalent roles, and while that only made me impatient in retrospect, it's still kind of annoying. There's also a late plot twist of sorts (the flashback and what it reveals) that, while reasonably credible, just plays as too neat. There was a point, toward the beginning of "part two," when I thought The Delinquents had shifted perspective completely and become Román's accidental reverie, as if Dog Day Afternoon had turned into Blissfully Yours, and the fact that I even came up with that description is a testament to what a terrific idea this film has at its core. Loved the ending, too, couldn't be more perfect (and Román's part of it really does need to tax one's patience a bit, otherwise Morán's doesn't work). There's a 128-minute version that would likely be on my top 10 list. And who knows, maybe a second look will get me there even at its actual dawdling pace. I know this review has whetted several appetites...