La prisonnière espagnole

Steve Martin in a serious role in a Mamet film is reason enough to see "The Spanish Prisoner", which I believe gets its name from a type of sucker scam of the same name. And that's what this film is about. A young professional invents "the process" which is very valuable to his company but he is worried he will not get compensated well enough. This seed of doubt, which others around him recognize, sets into motion a whole series of secrets and deceptions. The dialog is snappy as in all Mamet writing, and you either really like the style a lot, or you don't. I really like it. The various twists get a bit hard to follow, and it is the kind of movie you have to see at least twice for full benefit. It is not a great film, but a worthy one.

Beside Steve martin in his serious role, which he pulls off very well, the film also has Ben Gazzara and Mamet's wife, Rebecca Pidgeon who is very good in one of the key roles in this film.

You heard me. Even if you prefer, say, Kevin Spacey's performance in `The Usual Suspects' to Campbell Scott's here (to each his own), at least this is a film that plays fair with us. We begin at what is, from the protagonist's point of view, the beginning of the tale; things happen that are interesting in their own right and not simply because we know that there's meant to be a mystery lurking somewhere; we are given information as we go along; and later revelations actually explain earlier puzzles. Mamet doesn't force us through a maze. Rather, he lets us watch someone else walk through the maze, and it's a pleasure.

I'm determined not to spoil this pleasure, so I'm unable to say anything at all, really, about what the movie's about. I can't even tell you to what the title refers. I can't even tell you whether it refers to something peripheral or central. I'd better watch my mouth. As the slogan of a poster in the film says, in letters screaming above a drawing of a torpedoed battleship, `Somebody talked.' Not me.

All of the cast turn in good performances - that's right, all of them. I'm tired of remarks about how Rebecca Pidgeon got her role because she's the director's wife. It could well be true, and it could also be true (for all I know) that she's an actress of minor abilities, but her abilities are more than sufficient to make us believe in the character she plays here. How, exactly, is she so very different from Campbell Scott, or from Steve Martin, who, everyone will surely concede, gave the performance of his life? This just isn't the kind of story suited to emoting-while-pretending-not-to acting. All of the characters must dissemble in front of at least one other of the characters (THAT gives nothing away, trust me), and all of them are just a little bit unsettling.

I'll close by putting in a word for Carter Burwell's score. The music consists of a single labyrinthine tune, which twists about until we THINK we've caught it, and then stops: it provides a perfect thumb-nail sketch of the film as a whole. Also like the film as a whole, it's simply fun. Unlike so many directors Mamet doesn't act as if he's working in a disreputable genre, in which it's somehow bad form to allow the audience to have too good a time.

Well, if they learned one thing from making this film, I hope it's that Mamet should never sit in a director's chair again. I'm not prejudiced against Mamet. I like some of his films, particularly Glengarry Glen Ross, which is actually one of my favorites. But The Spanish Prisoner plays and sounds like a high school production. Literally.

I cannot for the life of me understand how this film can be called intelligent. Yes, it does not rely on violence, sex, swearing, drugs, alcohol, traffic violations, or even jaywalking to at least make it interesting. So call it a moral film, whatever that means. Oh, yes, it has a "plot." I assume that is why it's called intelligent.

I sat through this "plot" not knowing a thing about the film and I could see and hear the twists coming like I was tied to a post watching a host of bison pounding impending death into my ears. Plus it had more holes in it than a room full of acupuncture patients.

To begin, the editing was AWFUL, particularly the initial 30 minutes. Typically, when two characters walk into a room, it really does look like they were engrossed in conversation before walking in front of the camera. But in TSP, it looks like Mamet had just given the go ahead to roll tape. It played like it was made up of strips of paper cut up with scissors and then glued together. There might as well have been a speedbump noise every time there was a scene change.

And the dialogue?! What is even more discouraging than the abysmal quality of most films coming out now is when we're sold a piece of goods and people are convinced that it's intelligent. At least with the first problem, we're merely disgruntled. With the second, we're delusional. I find that depressing. So this film depressed me for that reason.

How contrived TSP is is metaphorically represented by the prime element of its plot structure: "The System." OK? I don't mind vague points. But this is just lazy. Why couldn't he just have made it top-secret information which could be used for insider trading? Or information about a revolutionary new product? The plot of Episode I: The Phantom Menace? Mamet may be acclaimed as a "genius," but he has to do more than throw out a script with a twist to have me sacrificing my first-born to his word processor.

I will grant you that art is not life. That said, it should not be more artificial than artifice requires. If Mamet hopes to continue holding an audience made up of more than sophomoric dilettantes, he should take some advice from another author. The "overdone or come tardy off," though it might impress some, "cannot but make the judicious grieve." Reform it altogether, David.

Basically a story about the theft of a "process", which we may here define as a "MacGuffin", around which an elaborate industrial con game is organized.

In any game (an activity with rules, more than one participant, and a recognizable outcome) there are only three elements: (1) physical skill (you outdrive the cars pursuing you), (2) chance (you jump off the roof and an awning breaks your fall), and/or (3) strategy (you outwit your opponent). Unlike most action movies, Mamet's stories are almost entirely about strategy.

That might make it sound like rather less than it is. Mamet seems to love puzzles -- and puzzles within puzzles -- and the lengths people will go to manipulate one another and, man, is this a prize-winning example of his obsession. As in "House of Game" we have a big con that goes a little astray and winds up not only with the theft of a priceless invention but murder as well.

I realize "Glengarry Glenross" is probably Mamet's most highly esteemed work but I think "House of Games" and "The Spanish Prisoner" are more engrossing because more things HAPPEN. Mamet's dialog always involves a lot of byplay, repetition, non sequiturs, and general ellipsis, but the elegant stylization isn't worth much if it doesn't go anywhere. Here the plot moves from the Caribbean to New York to Boston and with each step the conundrum becomes more difficult to figure out.

Of course the plot is an implausible one because it depends on the heavies being able to predict precisely the moves of the mark, down to small basically unforeseeable details, such as his snooping in a secretary's desk and stealing a souvenir FBI card out of her scrapbook. But it hardly matters because we're swept along so fluidly in the mystery that we don't really question these events. The viewer, by the way, is kept as much in the dark as Scott Campbell, the protagonist.

The performances are all quite apt. Scott Campbell might be a terrific inventor but he's kind of a dim bulb in other respects. He's the kind of highly conventional Schlub that wouldn't DREAM that anyone, let alone an entire organization, would lie with comfort and such powerful effect. You have to wonder what his voting record looks like.

Rebecca Pigeon is, I think, an actress who never got the kind of attention she deserves. She's beautiful in an unconventional, petite, brachycephalic, angular way and her locutions and expressions always seem to suggest she may know more about what's going on inside your head than you do yourself. She delivers Mamet's stylized speeches efficiently but in other films has demonstrated considerable range. "You never know who a person really is," she says. Something else. She may be treacherous, and he may be wary of an office romance, but they seem genuinely attracted to one another. Near the end, when Scott finally kisses her, she draws back and says, "Crikees!", as if amazed and tickled. This is a set up for a final scene when she is hustled into the police van. She's supposed to break away from the cops holding her, run to Scott, throw her arms around him, kiss him fiercely, and confess that her feelings had changed to true love. But no! Thank heaven she has no remorse at all and leaves him with a wisecrack and a sardonic smile. Mamet is nobody's fool.

I ought to mention the score. It's mysterious and melancholic. The main theme is built around a handful of descending notes and the orchestration is simple but a little odd -- bass, piano, quiet woodwinds, and chimes. It is so weird and catchy that it could just about stand on its own.

Repeat viewings don't spoil the polish, even though the viewer knows the solution to the mystery. It's an original commercial product and it's enjoyable.

As I inspect the review department, I pick up a lot of "masterpiece" or "excellent subtle great...etc thriller" opinions, which is definitely very odd. And not just the common fans, even "pro" critics. I think movie-goers have put the emphasis on the crime-mystery plot and figured it was well put together and suspenseful til the very end ?

But rather than focus too much on what everybody else is saying, I'd say this. The film is very slow to finally get started and REALLY does feel like a B film even about 30min into it. I felt awkward/embarrassed towards the others having picked this one for the night. The delivery of the lines, the atmosphere, that slowness overall or even the filming/irregularity in sound from scene to scene felt very amateurish...

I indulged into it and waited for the plot to finally open up show its quality. If anything, this had an almost David Lynch element to it in how distinctly atypical it felt, lead actor Campbell Scott being such a cold distant, distinguished almost a bit eerie protagonist with a Kyle MacLachlan springing to mind, sort of on the border of being a 'bad actor' but not really at the same time.

So this is one of these super convoluted mystery-thrillers where the protagonist somehow finds himself into some deep crud and he can't be sure who to trust anymore and tensions switch sides every time ... it's well done in how it keeps the suspense going til the very end.

In the finer details, there are those facts of the film that seem too convenient but we understand need to happen to stick to the plot...

Eh. Not bad though. 6.5/10.