'Nine Queens'

Quite a while back I commented on a filmmaker's relative inability to completely throw a savvy, well-watched movie fan off the scent for a big twist in the plot.

This goes back to my synopsis of "The Usual Suspects" when in the first 30 minutes I knew that Kevin Spacey was the big bad guy.

Maybe foreign directors have a leg up in stumping American movie fans. "Nine Queens" got me. Kinda.

I knew the twist was coming. Even when you think the twist was played out, I knew there was something amiss and I kept waiting, but I never figured it out. Maybe smarter people would've figured it out faster.

This is an incredibly smart action/thriller and if you can stand the subtitles it's better than any "Ocean's 11" or any of those spy/crime things Americans eat up with regularity.