“Un cabo suelto” Venice Review: Daniel Hendler’s comedy of escape and reinvention

One can assume that the starting point of Un cabo suelto (A Loose End) was the pun in its title: in Spanish, a “cabo” can mean both a low-ranking police officer and a “loose end.” The film plays with both meanings: a cop who goes missing becomes, quite literally, a “loose end” in a case. Throughout Daniel Hendler’s film, wordplay keeps popping up, especially in the exchanges between Santiago (Sergio Prina) and Rocío (Pilar Gamboa). Their running joke revolves around the slang term cana (cop), which they spin into comic riffs like “Tropicana” or “macana” (meaning “a blunder”). The loose end here is Santiago himself, a policeman who, for reasons never fully revealed, flees from Argentina to Uruguay while being chased by two of his colleagues. His escape—and the pursuit—sets the rhythm of this offbeat Río de la Plata comedy.

Structurally, Un cabo suelto unfolds in a curious way. Chronologically, it begins with Santiago slipping across the border into Uruguay, trying to figure out how to survive there with nothing on him—no money, no clothes, no belongings. He crosses at Fray Bentos and ends up at the duty-free shop in the bus terminal, where he meets Rocío, the shop attendant. They strike up a lively banter, he manages to recharge his phone and hide from the men he assumes are after him. But their encounter takes a complicated turn: that night he sneaks back into the shop, steals food, drinks, and even a tent to sleep in, before disappearing again at dawn.

Most of the film follows Santiago’s odd encounters and small misadventures in Uruguay. A recurring motif is cheese: Santiago knows a lot about it and repeatedly connects with people who make or sell it (played by Alberto Wolf and Diego de Paula). He also crosses paths with a lawyer and his associate (Néstor Guzzini and César Troncoso), while the two Argentine cops (Germán De Silva and Daniel Elías) close in on him with increasing menace. All the while, Santiago keeps trying to reconnect with Rocío, that luminous first encounter that hinted at the possibility of starting fresh in Uruguay.

Shot in Uruguay and co-produced with Argentina, Hendler’s film delights in small cultural details—the subtle (and not-so-subtle) differences between neighbors separated only by the Río de la Plata. Running jokes include the seat belt (Argentines, it’s suggested, reveal themselves by how casually they ignore it) and, especially, how people prepare and drink mate (the local herbal tea). While Santiago’s soft but unmistakable northern Argentine accent is already a giveaway, he tries to hide whether he’s “from here or from there.” Inevitably, it’s his mate habits that betray him: not letting the yerba steep long enough, pouring in too much water, or passing the gourd around when Uruguayans typically keep it to themselves. (And that’s without even bringing up the endless debate over whether to boil the water or not.)

This question of identity—what gives you away, and how you try to blend in—is central to the film. At first Santiago leans on his authority as a cop, acting as if he can fine a local cheese vendor for not having the right papers. But soon he realizes that the same uniform makes him an easy target for his pursuers. He tries to adapt, to blend in, to vanish into the crowd. For Hendler—an Uruguayan who has spent much of his career in Argentina—this theme of belonging on both sides of the river carries a personal resonance. Santiago wants to disappear and start over, but discovers it isn’t that simple.

Known as an actor (Lost Embrace, División Palermo), Hendler doesn’t appear in the film—not even a cameo—but returns to the director’s chair after Norberto’s Deadline, another melancholic comedy. This time he mixes in darker, more dramatic notes. Un cabo suelto even opens with a mysterious, somewhat violent scene that seems to set a harsher tone than what follows. And although Santiago’s misadventures lean toward the quirky and humorous, that threat lingers at the edges of the story.

The first of two Hendler films released this year—the other, 27 Noches, will premiere in competition at San Sebastián and later stream on Netflix—Un cabo suelto is, at its heart, the tale of a man trying to reinvent himself, to build a new identity while never quite escaping what haunts him. Piece by piece, he sheds his uniform—first the badge, then the jacket, later the trousers—as he tries to become someone else. It turns out to be much harder than changing the way you pour hot water over a mate.