The Art of Losing (Spanish: Perder es cuestión de método) is a 2004 Spanish-Colombian thriller film directed by Sergio Cabrera from a screenplay by Jorge Goldenberg based on the novel by Santiago Gamboa.

A grim history, but also human and fun, led by Colombian Sergio Cabrera (Golpe de estadio, La Estrategia del Caracol), the movie exposes the corruption rampant in the South American country - and the unholy nexus between politicians, land developers, the mafia and the military police.

The novel was adapted by screenwriter Jorge Goldenberg (Ilona Arrives with the Rain), we are shown a Colombia from a very particular angle: through the daily struggle between the romantic and the nihilistic .

A journalist named Victor Silampa (Gimenez Cacho) is writing an article about Peter Gay, about bourgeois attitudes about Romantic Love through the 17th to 19th centuries.

The corpse is unrecognizable and the fingerprints had been burned off - the body bloated and discolored after nearly two months in the temperate jungle in accordance with Piedrahita, the forensic.

One night Silampa goes to a brothel called "Lolita" where Estupiñan has invited him to talk with a truck driver named Lotario Abuchija who had been paid by a beautiful woman to take "a package" from Tunja to an abandoned house in Chocontá.

Estupiñan is involved with the case just to find his brother, who is possibly the impaled corpse was supposedly murdered - and confuses Silampa to work for the "secret police" because of his "education" and "access" to governmental corridors.

At the same time, the councilman also calls Vargas Vicuña, a civil engineer - who is very interested in the land near the lake where the body was found impaled.

Trying to act tough and older than her years, she claims he owes her money, to which the journalist smilingly agrees - but she reveals her soft-hearted and growing fascination with him.

The naked Silampa goes "detecting" and sneaks out and reads the registration of a suspicious car mentioned by Abuchija and returns inside with Quica and meets the supposed car-owner named Susan Caviedes, who is the Manager of the Baths.

Silampa finds in the paper archives a photo of the burial of Pereria Antunez, and asks a colleague who identifies that Vargas Vicuña, Barragan, Esquilache and Tiflis were all in attendance.

He asks his colleague to help a bit but the other reporter wants to take Silampa's car; he leaves with the keys only to come back and notifies him that the vehicle has been seriously damaged .

He tells the Deed the recently-deceased entrepreneur named Cassiodorus Pereira Antunez, who owned the land by the lake, does not appear to be in the files of the city, and no one has claimed inheritance.

When Tiflis and Susan leaves the hotel, Silampa goes to the top floor residence, finds and steals the Deedand flees the scene accompanied by a taxi driver met on the road.

Esquilache is being followed by Abuchija and Estupiñan as he arrives in his official car at an apartment where he confronts Barragan - who is extremely agitated and hysterical, and pulling a gun, alternately levels it at the Councilman and his own temple.

The Councilman cannot hide his despising his niece's husband, and in a sudden reversal, Barragan who has been putting the gun into his mouth and to his temple, shoots Esquilache killing him.

Silampa is taken to the police station where Moya congratulates him on the case being practically solved: Pereira Antúnez was kidnapped and forced to transfer land to Tifilis, possibly after being roughed up.

The Colonel reminds him he had sex with Quica, actually a teenager, Moya requests Silampa to forget about justice, to go along and publish "the official version" as his journalistic effort and "win the Simon Bolivar Prize for Journalism" so that his girlfriend will return to him upon his getting famous, if not rich - and also to finish the speech for "The Last Supper" and deliver it to him.