THE SPANISH PRISONER (1998)
Rating: 2.5 stars (out of 4.0) ******************************** Key to rating system: 2.0 stars - Debatable 2.5 stars - Some people may like it 3.0 stars - I liked it 3.5 stars - I am biased in favor of the movie 4.0 stars - I felt the movie's impact personally or it stood out ********************************* A Movie Review by David Sunga
Directed by: David Mamet
Written by: David Mamet
Starring: Campbell Scott, Rebecca Pidgeon, Steve Martin
Ingredients: Con artists, gullible inventor who gets conned
Synopsis: >From the title you might imagine THE SPANISH PRISONER is about a mysterious American who is unjustly trapped in a Spanish prison and must use superior wits and gut-level instinct to escape ruthless tormentors. But actually THE SPANISH PRISONER has nothing to do with either Spain or prisoners. It's a con game tale whose focus is not so much on the battle, but on details of the con, and the soul-less-ness of society.
THE SPANISH PRISONER is written and directed by David Mamet, a Pulitzer prize winning playwright who views cinema as an extension of live theater. Mamet is known for making frequent use of artsy soundbyte Shakespeare dialogue. He often uses theater as a medium for advancing social commentary and scathing indictments of societal superficiality.
The actual plot: The term Spanish Prisoner refers to a popular con game, which is mentioned in passing by characters in the movie. The main character Joe (Campbell Scott) is a brilliant scientific inventor and a resourceful scout, to the extent that he still keeps his trusty boy scout knife with him. But in this situation Joe is the exact opposite of clever and resourceful. For example, when people ask him to carry a suspicious package through airport security, he willingly obliges: twice. Joe accepts money not knowing where it has come from, and buys an extremely expensive item for a blind date whom he has never met. Nor can he decide between dating a sexy coworker or hanging around with a bath-robed male acquaintance. Joe's missing acumen makes him an easy target for materialistic con artists, who try to separate Joe from a precious secret formula book which he keeps in his office safe. Will Joe be spared?
Opinion: Chicago playwright and writer David Mamet won a Pulitzer Prize for GLENGARRY GLEN ROSS (1984). He is known for distinctive themes which permeate most of his work: the theme that society is hypocritical and superficial; people are insecure and confused, and; people hide behind rituals and meaningless dialogue to mask their insecurities. Mamet uses live theater to express this view. The easiest way to recognize a Mamet work is to examine the dialogue, sometimes described as absurdist. Here are some examples from THE SPANISH PRISONER:
Joe: "Funny old world." Joe's secretary: "Funny old world? Dog my cats."
I am just as confused as you are, by "dog my cats." That's the style. In THE SPANISH PRISONER Mamet takes a mediocre con game yarn, removes most of the information to make the plot seem more mysterious than it is, and then replaces real life dialogue with trademark Mamet-style dialogue - - line where characters interrupt each other with meaningless, nonspecific mantras right before anyone is about to reveal useful information.
>From the beginning we can easily see the victim, the prize, the bad guys, and the fact that Joe is being scammed. And we expect the dialogue to fill us in on what's happening. But Mamet surprises us. Instead of regular speech the supposedly ordinary characters spout cryptic witticisms evocative of a wistful David Niven and a shot of cognac. Typically, instead of yelling "get me to a hospital" an injured colleague says, "I put a thief in my mouth to steal my brains."
In my opinion, this kind of dialogue is done on purpose, because, Mamet-type main characters usually are written as inwardly insecure. The cryptic dialogue symbolically represents the fact that people don't really listen to each other; they merely parrot bland generalities and false wittiness to mask their inadequacy and unhappiness. Thus conversation is largely superficial 'dog my cats' stuff, mixed in with some philosophical barbs and ritualistic tongue-in-cheek toe-the-line generalizations.
Meanwhile we in the audience don't really know anything about main character Joe's character at all because his actions are deliberately inconsistent. Joe cannot decide between a man and a woman. He cannot decide whether to be ambitious about his job or whether to sit back. He can't decide whether he wants money or doesn't want it. In fact, the only solid constants are that Joe's society is corrupt and that Joe is clueless about the obvious con taking place. This cluelessness continues about an hour - - the length of time it takes for Joe to perceive what the audience knows in the first five minutes. Then THE SPANISH PRISONER quickens a bit, and finally the movie tosses in a good ending - - except for a flippant explanation of the mastermind.
In a lot of movies one thing which makes a movie amusing or entertaining for the audience is watching the cat and mouse game between the antagonist and the protagonist. Usually it's a battle of power, wits, luck, and strategy between evenly matched contestants or mismatched contestants where one opponent has grossly underestimated the other. THE SPANISH PRISONER has no such battle: Joe is completely outclassed by the cons who have not underestimated him at all.
A different director such as Alfred Hitchcock would have given Joe some valiant suspicions and a few sharp and exciting attempts at investigation or battling back. But here Mamet's cinematic assertion is that characters - - however confidently disguised and no matter from what strata of society - - are for the most part confused.
As a medium for delivering dark social criticism, THE SPANISH PRISONER succeeds artfully.
Reviewed by David Sunga May 28, 1998 Copyright © 1998 by David Sunga This review and others like it can be found at THE CRITIC ZOO: http://www.criticzoo.com email: zookeeper@criticzoo.com
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