Though its awkwardly translated title has been the butt of off-color jokes at Cannes, Argentine drama “The Snatch Thief” is a nicely plotted, unpretentious film about a purse snatcher whose guilt over a theft gone wrong leads to his befriending a victim with memory loss. Using many of the same actors as in his debut film “The Owners,” this second feature from Agustín Toscano, also set in the north-central city of Tucumán, takes a nuanced approach to the two lead characters, refusing an easy heart-warming approach and thereby delivering a more complex story beneath the stripped-down filmmaking. Not all of it quite holds together, but “The Snatch Thief” is exactly the type of small-scale Latin American indie product that sees significant festival play.

Cool blue tonalities are used at the start to introduce a couple of purse thieves: Miguel (Sergio Prina) drives the motorbike, and Pablo, Aka Colorao (Daniel Elias) grabs the bag.