THE SPANISH PRISONER (66)

Directed by: David Mamet

Starring: Campbell Scott, Rebecca Pidgeon, Steve Martin, Ben Gazzara

The Pitch: Beware! Things are Not As They Seem...I can say no more.

Theo Sez: Remember in THE LADY VANISHES when the polite, helpful doctor is revealed (to us, but not our too-trusting heroes) to be in league with the baddies? There's an identical twist towards the end of this elaborate exercise in trickery (motto : "anybody could be anybody"), and it makes for a blissful ten minutes or so - the kind of pure suspense one imagined had gone out of fashion forever. It's probably the highpoint, though the film tries hard to be consistently disorienting and unexpected (the first thing we see - unless we're French, of course - is a sign in a foreign language), helped along as ever by the unique timbre of Mamet's stylised dialogue, delivered in machine-gun bursts by all concerned - it's a much busier film than HOUSE OF GAMES or HOMICIDE, framed much tighter than their loose, almost desolate compositions so it seems to be bursting at the seams with potential clues and shady characters. The trick, as someone says, is to "keep a sense of humour" - not just because the plot's contortions are clearly absurd in the cold light of logic (everything depends on a frail old lady being in place during the - totally random - ten seconds or so when our hero's delivering a parcel), but also because Mamet himself is clearly having fun, putting clues in everyday objects (a lorry, a subway ad) as if on a treasure-hunt and writing his female lead (and wife) an impossibly sunny, golly-gee character. Also, alas, not really caring enough to do more with the rather underwhelming ending, making this perhaps the least compulsive of his Chinese puzzles ; still a smooth, civilised good time, though.