THE SPANISH PRISONER (Sony Classics) Starring: Campbell Scott, Rebecca Pidgeon, Steve Martin, Ben Gazzara. Screenplay: David Mamet. Producer: Jean Doumanian. Director: David Mamet. MPAA Rating: R (profanity, violence) Running Time: 110 minutes. Reviewed by Scott Renshaw.
I recall being only mildly impressed with David Mamet's HOUSE OF GAMES when I first saw it a decade ago, despite general critical acclaim. Sure, it was a meticulously crafted intellectual puzzle, and, even more impressive, it was a puzzle which didn't fall apart completely as you were thinking about it on the way home. With Lindsey Crouse serving serving as its remote heroine, however, all its unpredictable twists felt like they were taking place in a vacuum, leaving little reason to care about anyone in the story. Crafty, yes, but soulless.
Five years of wading through cinema at its most mind-numbing has given me a new appreciation for meticulously crafted intellectual puzzles, even if they are of the soulless variety. Mamet's new psychological mystery THE SPANISH PRISONER, a thoroughly intriguing cinematic engine, definitely falls into that category. Campbell Scott stars as a young corporate underling named Joe who has created a potential cash cow called The Process for his company. Unfortunately for Joe, little of that milk looks likely to end up in his cup. Enter Jimmy Dell (Steve Martin), a smooth operator who promises Joe a windfall if he'll turn over The Process.
It's best to cut off any plot summary at this point, lest certain turns of narrative be inadvertently revealed. Suffice it to say that THE SPANISH PRISONER tackles familiar Mamet subjects like breakdowns in trust and deceptive appearances, accompanied by the familiar-bordering-on-cliche staccato rhythms of Mamet's dialogue. It also features crisp pacing courtesy of editor Barbara Tulliver, and yet another insinuating score from the gifted Carter Burwell. Most significantly, it features a story which manipulates in all the best senses of the word. In an era where most films leave you suspecting the re-writes had been commissioned from a room full of chimps, THE SPANISH PRISONER treats an audience with respect -- no cheap tricks, no flip-a-coin-to-pick-the-killer endings, just a smart and surprising entertainment.
There's a lot to admire about the construction of THE SPANISH PRISONER, but it shouldn't be so difficult to find a sympathetic human protagonist to guide a story like this. Campbell Scott is a versatile, capable performer with the requisite look of naivete to play Hitchcockian dupe; he also reads virtually every line of Mamet's script with a deadening flatness. That goes ditto and double for Rebecca Pidgeon, whose turn as Joe's affectionate confidante falls apart with every forced line. While Steve Martin does marvelously cagey work as the mysterious Jimmy -- he's one of the few cast members who seems to have a grip on Mamet's style -- Scott feels as though he's being pulled grudgingly through the story because _somebody's_ got to be the hero.
Even with its lack of a vibrant hero, I can't be too hard on THE SPANISH PRISONER. In fact, that absence only really started to bother me on the way home, which is usually where the plots of such films start to bother me. I do wish that Mamet, who clearly has mastered the art of plotting, could make his films as emotionally compelling as they are intellectually satisfying. Giving his houses of games hearts to match their brains would make him one of our finest film-makers.
On the Renshaw scale of 0 to 10 games people play: 7.
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