This is probably Mamet's most purely enjoyable film since the gangster comedy Things Change.
The Spanish Prisoner (1998)
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:58
Fresh:51
Rotten:7
Average Rating:7.4/10
Runtime: 1 hr 50 mins
Genre: Dramas
Synopsis: Moody, austere, and unabashedly clever, THE SPANISH PRISONER is familiar ground for puzzle-loving writer-director David Mamet. Campbell Scott plays the Hitchcockian hero Joe Ross, an unassuming... Moody, austere, and unabashedly clever, THE SPANISH PRISONER is familiar ground for puzzle-loving writer-director David Mamet. Campbell Scott plays the Hitchcockian hero Joe Ross, an unassuming fall guy who has invented a mysterious process worth an unnamed, but presumably enormous, figure. Joe's share in the reward is uncertain, however, and his growing nervousness is subtly stoked by Jimmy Dell (Steve Martin), a charming and apparently wealthy new friend. Suddenly Joe finds himself wondering who he can trust: his boss, his friends, Jimmy, the FBI, or even the girl at work who has a crush on him (Rebecca Pidgeon, speaking her husband's lines as only she can). The big con is always fun to watch from the inside, but Mamet knows it's even more fun when the audience is on the outside, left to imagine the con as all-encompassing so that everyone and everything is suspect. The fine ensemble acting and terse, loaded dialogue add to the atmosphere of total suspense while the muted but rich production design produces a too-believable longing in Joe, whose tiniest greedy qualm is still enough to spell disaster. [More]
Starring: Campbell Scott, Steve Martin, Ben Gazzara, Ricky Jay
Starring: Campbell Scott, Steve Martin, Ben Gazzara, Ricky Jay, Felicity Huffman
Director: David Mamet
Director: David Mamet
Producer: Jean Doumanian
Reviews for The Spanish Prisoner
David Mamet's most consistently enjoyable film to date is a cool, typically clever con-trick drama packed with deliciously inventive twists that get ever more convoluted and unnerving as the plot proceeds.
David Mamet has really stumped us this time. This, his fifth film as writer-director, is his most mainstream work to date, but it also happens to be his cleverest, craftiest and most conniving.
One exceedingly well-crafted piece of manipulation that keeps the audience strung along with every intricate turn of the plot.
The result is rather frustrating -- the story works but feels oddly hollow, almost like a con game itself.
David Mamet has a penchant for sleight-of-hand thrillers, and The Spanish Prisoner is his craftiest to date.
The Spanish Prisoner shares with Glengarry Glen Ross a vision of life as a cosmic con game in which the victimizers feed the fantasies of the victims.
A reminder that even intelligent films can be exercises of style over substance.
A substandard con flick that is surprisingly lightweight for a David Mamet film. In fact, it's so watered down that it feels more like a forgettable T.V. Movie-of-the-week.
In David Mamet's world nothing is what it seems and nobody talks like a real person. The stylized dialogue is not a flaw--it's part of the entertainment. Mamet keeps you and star Campbell Scott guessing until the final moments.
An intriguing whodunit about murder and computer software, The Spanish Prisoner fails because for the most part, its actors aren't up to the task, and Mamet is unable to educate them properly.
David Mamet's latest contraption has its satisfying moments, but the film is rarely more than just that: a contraption.
By the end, the story does overrun the characters; but we only know them in a superficial way, so it seems natural for them to be secondary to the plot.
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