"Ladrón que roba a ladrón"

I suppose this is a caper movie. A couple of old pros and a handful of rank amateurs come together to rip off an infomercial con-man. The movie is full of characters, some deadly serious, some total buffoons, and some who are just out there.

There was one character who stood out in my mind, and that was this dark haired Latino beauty, who is playing this tomboy character. At the beginning she tries to pick a fight with everyone she meets. By the end she has mellowed and discovered her feminine side, much to everyone's relief.

There were a couple of other women characters in the movie, but none of them stood out in my mind. Good looking, clever, devious, admirable, but this feisty Latino is the one who captured my imagination.

There is one scene where she berates a security guard for "checking her out". In a subsequent visit to the security checkpoint, her mere appearance is enough for the guard to wave them on through, he doesn't want to have anything to do with her. I thought it was hilarious. I thought of it again today and I tried to tell my wife about it, but when I mentioned "the girl in the movie", she came back with "the wife?". This flummoxed me. I had completely forgotten about the wives in the movie. At first I could not even think of who she was talking about, and then I wondered why she would think of them. To me, they were almost non-existent characters. Curious what people latch onto in movies.

I think the title translates as "Thief Who Robbed a Thief". We watched the movie in Spanish with English subtitles, though I think dubbed English was available.

There was only one part of the movie I did not like and that was the very end where the thieves send out refunds to all the people who were duped by the sleazy infomercial guy. I am thinking what a pointless effort. If they are that foolish to send money to a charlatan once, and they get their money back, all they will do is find another charlatan to send it to. Maybe I am being too harsh. People are sometimes in stressful situations where their judgement is impaired. Some people's judgement is just not too good. Does it help to give them their money back when they have spent it foolishly? One of out of a hundred may learn their lesson, but I tend to think they would learn their lesson better if they did not get their money back.

This is the reason I am opposed to privitizing Social Security. Some people just cannot handle money. It is not in their nature. Some financial whiz-kids may think it is the simplest thing in the world, and for them it may well be. But it is not for everyone.

Some people say Social Security taxes should be invested and the dividends and/or interest used to pay for benefits. To do that, a great deal more would have to be collected to build up a large enough trust fund. That would be money that would be removed from the free market and put under the control of some investment gurus somewhere. Not a good idea. Keep the extra that would have to be siphoned off to build the giant Social Security trust fund and spend it or invest it as you see fit. If we are going to have Social Security it is better to pay as you go. Last thing we need is more investment gurus.

Update December 2016 replaced missing picture.