Writer-director David Mamet crafted this unusual, Hitchcockian thriller in which no one is who they appear to be. Campbell Scott is Joe Ross, who has just created a "process" that stands to make his company and his boss, Klein (Ben Gazzara), millions of dollars. At a clandestine meeting in the Caribbean, Ross discusses the details of the process with company executives. There, purely by chance, or so he believes, he meets the wealthy, enigmatic Jimmy Dell (Steve Martin), and the two strike up an
unusual friendship. Dell informs Ross that he's naïve to believe that his company will fairly compensate him for his valuable work. Upon returning home, Ross becomes paranoid that Dell is right, and he takes steps to protect his invention, becoming unsure if he can trust Klein or even his own love-struck assistant (Rebecca Pidgeon). When Ross discovers that Dell has lied to him about his identity, he contacts the FBI -- he then finds himself set up as a murder suspect who learns, almost too late, to trust no one. The title of the film refers not to any of the characters but to a classic con artist's scam. ~ Karl Williams, Rovi
There's something fresh, even restorative, in watching an American studio movie that doesn't treat the movie-going audience like a bunch of gullible marks.
David Mamet's most consistently enjoyable film to date is a cool, typically clever con-trick drama packed with deliciously inventive twists that get ever more convoluted and unnerving as the plot proceeds.
A substandard con flick that is surprisingly lightweight for a David Mamet film. In fact, it's so watered down that it feels more like a forgettable T.V. Movie-of-the-week.
In David Mamet's world nothing is what it seems and nobody talks like a real person. The stylized dialogue is not a flaw--it's part of the entertainment. Mamet keeps you and star Campbell Scott guessing until the final moments.
An intriguing whodunit about murder and computer software, The Spanish Prisoner fails because for the most part, its actors aren't up to the task, and Mamet is unable to educate them properly.
By the end, the story does overrun the characters; but we only know them in a superficial way, so it seems natural for them to be secondary to the plot.
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