Ladrón Que Roba a Ladron

If Ocean's Eleven had been made as a chintzy telenovela, the result would have been something like Joe Menendez's puny heist comedy Ladrón Que Roba a Ladron (A Thief Who Robs a Thief). Emilio (Miguel Varoni), an experienced scam artist, asks his partner Alejandro (Fernando Colunga) to gather together a crew for a big job—robbing a safe in the mansion of a sleazy infomercial guru who's been ripping off “ordinary people” with his Spanish-language TV commercials for “miracle” products. Unfortunately, the pros are all unavailable, so Alejandro assembles a motley bunch of amateurs—an actor with stage fright, a parking-lot attendant and his daughter, a TV repairman/computer geek, and a brawny day laborer. Together, they embark on a complicated plan to break into the mark's office while simultaneously crashing a big party at the guy's estate and using carefully-staged misdirection to grab the cash. By the standards of take-the-money-and-run movies, this one is neither as funny nor as clever as it thinks it is. Not recommended. [Note: DVD extras include audio commentary by director Joe Menendez and writer/costar JoJo Henrickson, 24 deleted scenes with optional commentary (22 min.), a 13-minute “making-of” featurette, a featurette on the musical score with composer Andrés Levin (4 min.), and trailers. Bottom line: a decent extras package for a disappointing film.] (F. Swietek)