Butler's Cinema Scene

Gael Garcia Bernal, Leonardo Ortizgris

“MUSEO”  My rating: B

208 minutes | No MPAA rating

Though essentially a crime story — its centerpiece is an almost-silent 20-minute depiction of a museum heist — “Museo” is interested in much bigger issues.

Alonso Ruizpalacios’ sophomore directing effort might be viewed as a study of disaffected young men in 1980s Mexico.

Or it might be about a couple of idiots who get lucky in spite of their own ineptness.

Juan (Gael Garcia Bernal) has a part time job at Mexico City’s National Museum of Anthropology. He’s helping a photographer catalog the museum’s collection of Mayan and Aztec artifacts, but Juan is always getting in trouble for handling these priceless objects without the requisite latex gloves.

Though in his early ’30s, Juan is a boy/man whose lack of ambition — not to mention common sense — is the bane of his middle-class family.

Early in the film he challenges his best friend, Wilson (Leonardo Ortizgris), to shoot a Rubik’s cube off his head with a bow and arrow. Wilson, who has the look of an uncomprehending bassett hound, at first protests this ill-conceived idea; then, at Juan’s urging, prepares to let loose a shaft.

That scene tells us much about their friendship.  Juan makes the policy; the loyal, thick-headed Wilson does his bidding.

Which brings us to Juan’s hair-brained scheme to slip into the museum on Christmas Eve and sneak out with millions in ancient jewelry, stone sculptures and even an exquisite jade burial mask.

Gael Garcia Bernal

Amazingly, the museum’s security is criminally half-assed.  Juan has cannily figured out how to get at the artifacts without setting off an alarm; when a couple of ineffectual security guards chain shut the door meant as the thieves’ escape route, Juan has the bright idea of exiting through a ventilation shaft.

The bulk of “Museo” unfolds in the robbery’s aftermath.  They’re sitting on a king’s ransom in ancient  art, but Juan and Wilson have no idea of how to cash in.  They trek across Mexico to visit a tour guide (Bernardo Velasco) at one of those Aztec pyramids; he in turn directs them to an Englishman (Simon Russell Beale) who collects pre-Colombian art. But all they get is bad news.

“Nobody in this business is stupid enough to buy it,” the Brit warns. “The pieces are unsellable. They might as well be worthless.”

Hauling their treasure around in a kid’s backpack, they hang for a while with a stripper (Leticia Bredice) who unwittingly uses a priceless Mayan broach to cut up her lines of cocaine.

Eventually patriotism kicks in.  The whole of Mexico is irate at this looting of the country’s most resonant relics; the robbery has generated a massive wave of indignant patriotism.

Finally our boys come to the unhappy conclusion that their treasure will never make them rich, happy or secure.  So now they’ve got to figure out a way to sneak their plunder back into the museum.

Here’s the thing: Despite some dramatic liberties, “Museo” is based on fact. In 1985 the national museum was robbed; the authorities were so sure that seasoned pros had done the job (using an air duct to get in and out…pure genius) that they never thought to look for a couple of dopey slackers.

There’s a mystery at the heart of “Museo.”  What exactly motivated Juan and Wilson to launch such an improbable scheme?  It may have been about more than getting rich; though Bernal’s Juan doesn’t talk much about his inner life, it could be his way of showing his family that he’s not such a screwup after all.

| Robert W. Butler