SPOILER ALERT: the following article contains massive spoilers, including the ending. If you have not yet seen the movie, proceed at your own risk, or better, come back to this article later!
Neighbors band together to recover their money from a corrupt lawyer and a bank manager during the Corralito bank crisis in Argentina.
SPOILERS AHEAD
Heroic Losers Plot Summary and Synopsis
In August 2001, in the small town of Villa Alsina, Fermín Perlassi, his wife Lidia and his friend Antonio Fontana come up with a plan to reopen “La Metodica”, an agricultural cooperative which went bankrupt over ten years ago.
To do so, they learn the minimal investment to cover the initial costs reaches 300,000 pesos and bring the idea to the town’s residents: mechanic Rolo Belaúnde, self-employed fix-it brothers Gómez, unemployed riparian Medina and Carmén Lorgio, the town’s shipping company’s owner, who all agree and chip in.
They manage to reach 158,653 pesos, which Fermín deposits in the bank vault in Villagrán.
A few days later, Alvarado, the bank manager, summons Fermín to the bank and manipulatively convinces him to deposit the money in his own account, claiming the central bank will probably not approve his loan request without a warranty on the debt. Fermín complies and travels back to Alsina, but the financial crisis reaches its peak the next day as the President announces the implement of the corralitos, which practically freezes every U.S. dollar-denominated accounts in Argentina and prohibits any weekly withdrawals over 250 pesos.
Soon after, they learn Alvarado knew about the incoming government measures beforehand and personally approved a loan request by a lawyer named Fortunato Manzi, who converted the credit to U.S. dollars and withdrew all deposited dollar bills only a few minutes after Fermín left the bank.
Fermín and Lidia travel to Villagrán to confront Alvarado, to no avail; in the way back, their car is run off the road by a truck, which results in Lidia’s death and a severely injured Fermín.
One year later, Belaúnde and Fontana learn Manzi has contracted a construction worker to dig a 10 square feet hole in the middle of a nearby rural area and become convinced it serves as an underground burial vault to store the dollars.
Fermín, his son Rodrigo, Fontana, Medina, the Gómez brothers, Carmen and her son, Hernán, reunite and decide to devise a plan to crack the vault and retrieve their “stolen” money. They soon learn Manzi has installed an impenetrable alarm device around the vault, which makes it impossible to break in; however, after rewatching a scene from How to Steal a Million, Fermín comes up with the idea to set off the alarm multiple times in order to force Manzi to disconnect it from its battery, which coupled with a power supply cut, would allow the crew to enter the vault.
Meanwhile, Rodrigo poses as a gardener assigned to work at Manzi’s office lawn to keep track of him.
Fermín and Fontana track the power cables and succeed in installing a junction box, repeatedly cutting and restoring the area’s power supply and causing the alarm to set off multiple times a day.
Manzi eventually disconnects the battery, but Florencia, his secretary, realizes Rodrigo is not a gardener, which prompts him to confess her their plans. Fermín calls off the heist in fear she will tell Manzi about it, but Rodrigo reassures him otherwise and they carry on with the plan.
That night, the crew splits into two groups: Belaúnde and Medina are tasked with destroying the power generator that supplies the area while Fermin, Rodrigo and Hernán will break into the safe when the lights go off; however, Medina miscontrols the toy car carrying the dynamite and creates an explosion that destroys all generators, causing a massive blackout.
Manzi, who is in a party affected by the power outage, suspects something is wrong and heads to the vault. Meanwhile, Fermín and the others successfully break into the vault and find millions of dollars in cash, proceeding to retrieve the money.
Manzi arrives soon after, but his car gets stuck in a mud barricade set by Fontana. The crew flees with the money as Manzi curses and threatens them by a distance. Later, they separate the money in two cars: one driven by Rodrigo and other by Hernán, and return to Alsina.
Heroic Losers Ending
The next day, Fermin is consoling Cármen: Hernán ran away with nearly 2 million dollars in his car and haven’t made contact since. In spite of that, they use the money to reopen La Metodica, which guarantees a better life for everyone in Alsina.
Heroic Losers Mid-Credits Scene
Manzi arrives at Fontana’s auto shop with a flat tire. Fontana unzips his pants, rubs his mate’s bombilla against his crotch, places it in the gourd and offers it to Manzi, who drinks it as his tire is swapped.
Source: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 3.0).