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The Spanish PrisonerRating:
Release Date: 04 November, 2003 Retail Price: $19.94 Sorry, this product is not currently available. Cast: Complete Cast (11 total) |
The Spanish Prisoner Reviews
Good movie
This movie is really good. The actors and the plot of the story are good. The movie is really long. The idea behind this movie is smart.
A paranoia-bound mystery with more holes than Swiss cheese
Campbell Scott gives a fine, restrained and ultimatley unbelievable performance as the sap in this film rendition of David Mamet's Kafkaesque screenplay about deceit, paranois, theft and idiocy. Playwright Mamet has traversed this ground before in 1992's "The Water Engine", a similarly droll screenplay about which Amazon gives this synopsis:
"In the 1930s, Charles Lang invents an engine that runs using water for fuel. But when he tries to get it patented, he is first offered a ridiculously low amount. When he refuses, he is suddenly several people are pressuring him to sell. The big oil companies don't want the competition. Now he has to try and keep them from getting his idea, and somehow get it published. "
If you substitute Scott's late 1990s draft of an unstated new technology for the water engine, you have the makings of "The Spanish Prisoner", which is defined in the film as the oldest scam in the book: A guy marries a Spanish queen but can't bring her home. To rescue her and her fortune in Spain, he must have the riches of someone else invested. This is what Scott faces and falls for.
I like Campbell Scott as an actor and think he does fine work, but his role is too comfortable with being the sap in this film. Even when circumstances dent the denseness of his senses and he finally realizes he's being scammed, he still falls for the girl and unwittingly participates in a set up murder. This is a guy smart enough to invent a new technology that can't find a way not to participate in a set up!
My wife, who is something of an expert at figuring out the clues in mysteries like this one, pegged the two earliest clues immediately after they were presented -- Scott being given a Swiss bank account (not full of cheese!) and signing his name to a fraudlent document that comes back to haunt him later.
Similar events occurred during Mamet's "The Water Engine", whose premise seemed more well thought out and realistic than the never stated technology of this film. Where Kafka's paranoia was under the umbrella of post World War II European communism, Mamet's paranoia is built around corporate intrigue where all that pretend to be your allies are indeed your competitors and are out to fleece you from your fortune. In this vein, poor Campbell Scott doesn't have a friend in the whole flick. Even his erstwhile boss (Ben Gazarra) is involved in the scam.
Steve Martin is hit and miss in an unsuitably dramatic and despicable role that is pretty much out of character for him. Other supporting characters, incluidng the fetching Mrs. Mamet as one of several femme fatales, are effective in a monochromatic way. The script begins with promise but shows its superficiality the longer it unfolds. It becomes ridiculous at the end, almost cartoonish.
Still this can be a pleasant experience for mystery watchers that will fill an evening when nothing better is available. It is far from Scott's best work (try "The Daytrippers" if you can find it) and probably isn't among Mamet's best either. The aura of suspicion, deceit and paranoia Mamet's script tries to construct is partially successfully but falls under the weight of the story's fallibility.
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