Rodrigo Moreno's "Los delincuentes" is a slow burn bank robbery/heist film strengthened by its strong performances and stunning cinematography. With its three-hour runtime, it might be too much of an undertaking for average moviegoers. That being said, the runtime is certainly felt and should have been an hour shorter. The film ends by giving audiences three possible scenarios to think about of where the characters might have ended up. The ending is ambiguous and open to interpretation. Speaking of the thought-provoking ending, Ramon is a true friend. He literally waited more than three years for Moran to be released from prison. In the meantime, he could have easily taken the money and left his friend in a ditch. That is the definition of friendship. Also, I really loved how the filmmaker portrays Moran and Ramon's romantic relationship with Norma. Ramon and Norma have more of a fiery, passionate, and salacious relationship, while Moran and Norma connect through intellectually stimulating conversations.

Final verdict: 7.5/10.

A very realistic start where we see a bank employee carefully steal $650,000 and later turn himself in - without the money. His plan was to slip the money to a fellow employee, serve an anticipated three and a half years in jail and then split the hidden money with his accomplice. We might expect this plan to get uglier than anticipated - and it does, as a leader of the inmates threatens to kill him if he doesn't arrange to funnel some of the missing loot into the other prisoner's account. The bulk of the loot gets hidden under a rock in a remote rural location. But then the story takes a left turn where the two protagonists at different times are drawn iinto a a film crew and locals in the countryside trying to record independent forces of nature. Where time seemed like everythng before it is almost nothing for a while as we are captive to a long unplanned experience, including relationships with a local woman. The movie takes much of its three hour running time to immerse us in this unstructured world where the acting and the setting rather than the plot keep us engaged. The film juxtaposes the necessary rigid struggles of living and working in the city versus living more freely among the elements. As nice as the latter sounds, it would take money for the two main characters to find eventual freedom - and the money was not theirs and they were not heroes. A pervasive blues record that gets played here and there tells it like it is.

Saw this film at the Melbourne International Film Festival and was deeply deeply diappointed.

The film runs for three hours and it absolutely does not require the massive run time, as so little of consequence actually happens in the film. The bank robbery angle is an intriguing place to start the story and the banality of the workplace provides some moments of amusement and intrigue.

However the director soon gets bored with the central premise of the story and gets distracted by meandering through a variety of inconsequential subplots. These subplots end up contributing little to the film's plot overall. By the end it was really making me angry at how slow the plot was and how little the director cared about my time.

I have rarely been so bored during a film, honestly would have walked out if I hadn't been with a bunch of people who wanted to stay.

I'd ignore the inexplicably positive reviews by the high and mighty artsy film critics, save three hours and skip this one.