Movies You Might Have Missed: David Mamet's The Spanish Prisoner

Steve Martin and Campbell Scott star in the Hitchcockian thriller, complete with dialogue known as ‘Mamet-speak’, with incomplete sentences, stutters and interruptions – but, uncharacteristically, no foul language

Steve Martin plays a villainous stranger in David Mamet’s ‘The Spanish Prisoner’

David Mamet is one of the most acclaimed living playwrights and yet his big screen work has not always been greeted with the same reverence. The 1992 adaptation of his play Glengarry Glen Ross (directed by James Foley) is an established modern classic, but for every hit there's a miss: the 2000 comedy State and Main, for instance, has been largely forgotten by all but a few completists. The Spanish Prisoner (1997), while not all that well known, deserves a place in the former category.

The film is a Hitchcockian thriller in the vein of North by Northwest. Campbell Scott plays corporate engineer Joe Ross, a man who has invented a lucrative, industrial process that could earn his company millions. He expects a bonus for his work but suspects his employer might not be all that forthcoming. Enter a wealthy stranger (Steve Martin) and the inventor is suddenly caught up in a world of intrigue, murder and corruption where nothing is as it seems.

Writer/director David Mame (Getty)

To say too much about the plot would be to spoil the fun, but it is worth noting that the film contains only superficial references to the notorious confidence trick known as the “Spanish Prisoner”. It is as though Mamet, like Hitchcock at his best, is trying to get one over on the audience and we are ultimately the victims of an ingenious scam.

Martin is superb as the villainous stranger, an atypical role during his renaissance in the late 1990s. Mamet felt comedians could make strong dramatic actors, citing Jackie Gleason in The Hustler and Jerry Lewis in The King of Comedy as examples. The comedian was cast after the director saw his work in Waiting for Godot on stage and knew he was up to the task.

Ben Gazzara, Rebecca Pidgeon and Felicity Huffman round out an impressive cast and their ability to adopt “Mamet-speak”, with its trademark stutters, false starts and interruptions, while retaining plausibility is testament to their skill as performers. One way in which the film differs from the writer's usual work is that it contains not one obscenity – not many people thought they'd live long enough to witness a PG Mamet film.

This is not a perfect work by any means. There are undoubtedly plot holes and the whole thing is an exercise in style over substance. The journey, however, is a thrilling one if you're willing to suspend your disbelief and enjoy the ride.