Watch To Steal from a Thief For Free

That was an excellent one.

Sadly Over-hyped

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

The premise sounds awfully similar 2008's Roger Donaldson - Jason Statham flick 'The Bank Job'. A heist at a bank. Safe deposit boxes are targeted. A political conspiracy is involved. But the thriller works better when it sticks to the perspectives of the (rather small-time) perpetrators led by Uruguayan (Rodrigo de la Serna) and Gallego (Luis Tosar), than the Spanish secret-service or the Press office of the Prime Minister.I'd say that the director Daniel Calparsoro struggles to maintain the tempo during the latter portions of the film, largely due to the introduction of too many characters (in the form of negotiators, PRs and the like, not adding a great deal to the central plot). As a result, the movie engages when the ever-reliable Tosar and fiery De La Serna take center-stage. The problems never seem to cease for the burglars: the weather is giving them a hard-time plotting their escape; the negotiators are mercurial, their plans keep changing with the advance of time and there's an "idiot" (in the form of Loco) in the group, persistently screwing things up.There are quite a few factors worthy of applause - like the way Tosar's character finds a soft-corner for the good-looking manager, how they manage to hold themselves together in spite of various instances of mismanagement, the treatment of Loco's character (who's having the hots for a lady employee at the bank, to the point of gifting her some of the spoils from their burglary), the exciting phone conversations and face-offs between Uruguayan(& Gallego) and the negotiators. Yet, the grand finale looks stretched and overstuffed with too many angles taken into account. The characters who represent the secret- service and the Press office unfortunately do not carry a sense of urgency and always come up short whenever they share screen-space with De La Serna and Tosar. As such, the climax is not one that awes. While I'd hoped for an intrinsic fall-out to occur within the gang, the director only teased hints and shoved the idea soon after. The twists required to make a film such as this more pulpy, are lacking (especially towards the climax portions). Verdict: Worth seeing for Tosar and De la Serna!

Its a movie about bank heist but it is no ordinary heist--and it is not just guns and fists...and frothy testosterone. The real testosterone is effectively bought out by decisions that people make inside and outside when everything is on line. It is these decisions that keep you glued. Mentally and conceptually. ....it is the dialogues that sets the situation...whether it is past crime, current crime, or future action. Great acting, impressive cast sells it--you don't need special effects to make an immersive movie. Even hostages behave smartly but not too smartly--like real people, and the tension is maintained till the last min. You never know which way the movie will lean. This is something Spanish thrillers have perfected. Hollywood will not make such a movie but should....you can only ride for so long on the comic books and invincible heroes. As others have pointed out it is not perfect, it has gaps, sometimes big holes, but the world that is created by the director (right down to the atmosphere both inside and outside) makes it come together in an entertaining manner and the twists play out in a methodical manner.

In Spain, there is the belief that corruption is an everyday occurrence (not only there, of course). "Cien años de perdón" uses this as the MacGuffin in a heist movie that starts OK but ends making no sense and with too many stupid twists.Six thieves get into a bank in Valencia, in the East of Spain, and take 30 people as hostages. Pretty soon we discover that money or jewels are not the reason behind the heist, but a hard-drive with information about some high-ranking politicians. The police, the politicians, the thieves, the director of the bank... all their interests will intertwine while the tensions rise.The idea is simple, and it could have been a good action/mystery movie. However, the plot twists are risible, the pace too slow and shaky, and the direction lifeless, wasting a good bunch of actors along the way, like the always reliable Luis Tosar. The characters keep lying to each other for no reason, but not only so, they keep taking silly decisions based on whims, and the moments that the plot uses to raise the tension are poor and make for the typical: turn-the-car-around! situations.A disappointment.

An armed robbery of a bank goes badly wrong on a rainy day in Valencia. The fallout ends up revealing high level political corruption.This Spanish crime-thriller is one which twists its genre framework around the all too real Spanish economic recession, in which many people are still suffering. As such, it has a few political points to make while delivering a muscular crime story. It possibly is a little too dialogue heavy for its own good at times and consequently it does lose a bit of momentum as it goes forward but its overall a pretty solid bit of genre film-making with a conscience. It features an animated Rodrigo De la Serna (The Motorcycle Diaries (2004)) in the role of the lead thief, The Uruguayan.