It’s Sunday afternoon and you’re looking for a feel-good movie to run in the background while you’re recovering. Something easygoing but still engaging enough to prevent you from falling asleep or throwing up. Heroic Losers is a charming Argentinian comedy featuring an all-star cast led by Ricardo Darín and based on a popular novel. It’s about a group of ordinary people who decided to take matters into their own hands and stop being losers. As I understand it, Eduardo Sacheri’s novel The Night of the Heroic Losers is much better than this movie despite him co-writing the script.
However, Heroic Losers is perfectly watchable if you’re in the mood for it. First of all, you will learn more about Argentina and its troubled recent history. Secondly, it features a heartwarming story about ordinary people just like you and me. You can feel that you know these characters as they inhabit every corner of this Earth. They just speak different languages. As soon as I saw that our main character Perlassi was trying to open an agricultural cooperative, I decided to stick with Heroic Losers. I felt an obligation to push through this a bit clunky opening section because this is the way to push against corporations and assholes.
As I said so many times before, capitalism is just a consequence of our tribal system of values. It pushes people to lose their own moral compass and do whatever they want to satisfy the imaginary needs the system tells them they have. I better stop now before going down another rant rabbit hole. Heroic Losers is not just a heist movie, it’s also a small-town crime movie. It’s awfully mainstream, not deviating from this sentiment for one freaking second. You would think that a movie highlighting the injustices ordinary people suffer would be willing to do something daring but I guess you would be wrong. Perhaps this is the only way to get to the general population, I don’t know.
I had no idea Argentina went through this huge economic crisis some twenty years ago. Commonly known as Corralito, this period was devastating to every class living in Argentina. Every class but the elite class, as we already know from so many historic examples. And this sense of injustice is what pushes the story forward. You want to see things set straight although this also makes what’s about to happen rather predictable.
Fermin Perlassi lives in a small Argentinian town that’s getting smaller and smaller every year. Most of the residents are old barely making a living. So, he decides to reopen the old granary to create some jobs. Fermin wants to form an agricultural cooperative with people from his town. And while at first, everything seemed to be going great, trouble will soon rear its ugly head.
It’s funny how all small towns in all countries of the world are practically the same. Only in some countries, the scenery is more picturesque. Just like in this movie. When it comes to the cast of Heroic Losers, apart from Ricardo Darín I would like to single out two young stars. Chino Darín and Ailín Zaninovich gave great performances and brought a bit of youthful energy to the atmosphere. Finally, if you’re looking for similar movies, check out Heist of the Century. It’s also an Argentinian heist movie but this time based on true events.
Director: Sebastián Borensztei
Writers: Sebastián Borensztein, Eduardo Sacheri
Cast: Ricardo Darín, Verónica Llinás, Andrés Parra, Chino Darín, Ailín Zaninovich, Daniel Aráoz
Fun Facts: Won the Goya Award for Best Ibero-American Film.
Rating:
IMDb Link: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10384744/
