Film Friday: The Spanish Prisoner (1997)

Can a movie be too intelligent? Not really. But it can try too hard to seem intelligent. That’s the case with The Spanish Prisoner. Written and directed by David Mamet, The Spanish Prisoner has many of the hallmarks of great films: intelligent plot, fascinating twists and turns, smart dialog, and an interesting atmosphere or mood. It also has staying power, as it’s on television all the time and I find myself drawn to it. I like this film a lot, but I can’t call it a great film because Mamet tries too hard to prove he's clever.

** spoiler alert **

Without spoiling too much, The Spanish Prisoner involves a confidence game. It centers around Joe Ross (Campbell Scott), an engineer who has invented a secret process that is about to make his company rich. As the story opens, we learn that Ross’s boss Mr. Klein (Ben Gazzara) is talking to wealthy investors about backing the company’s new invention. At the same time, Joe starts to realize that he has no protection should the company claim the invention and stiff him. His attempts to get such protection place him in an adversarial position vis-à-vis his company. While this is going on, Joe runs into a mysterious man named Jimmy Dell (Steve Martin). Dell is a wealthy man who befriends Joe and starts to advise him regarding the issues with his company. Beyond this set up, all I will say is that Joe soon finds himself way out of his league as various people around him may or may not be trying to manipulate him, and he has no idea who he can trust.

I really do enjoy this film, but it also disappoints me every time I watch it. What bothers me is not the story or the characters, but a dozen small moments in the film. And what each of these moments has in common is they try too hard to prove how smart the film is:

The Macguffin

Right out of the gates we’re presented with the Macguffin. This is a term coined by Alfred Hitchcock to mean the object/thing that drives the plot and motivates the characters' actions, i.e. what the characters want -- like a necklace in a robbery story or papers in a spy story. But there's an interesting aspect to the Macguffin, which is that it's also irrelevant what it actually is. In other words, the necklace could just as easily be a diamond, a work of art or a pile of money. This realization has led some of the more clever filmmakers to play around with the Macguffin. A perfect example of this comes from Pulp Fiction, where the characters are chasing a briefcase that shines gold when it opens. Despite this titillating clue, we never do find out what's inside the briefcase because Tarantino is intentionally teasing us, knowing that it doesn’t actually matter to the story.

Mamet tries the same thing here by never telling us what this formula is or how much it's worth. Unlike Pulp Fiction however, where this was a clever tease, here it feels more like showing off. For example, Mamet does things like blatantly turning the camera away from a blackboard as the dollar amount is written upon it. And he repeatedly finds ways to highlight that he’s not telling us what the formula is, such as when FBI Agent McClure (Felicity Huffman) makes a huge point of telling Ross not to tell her what the formula is. Once or twice would have been fine, but this quickly becomes like the annoying acquaintance who explains over and over how something they did was clever.

The Dialog

Next comes the dialog. Mamet is famous for his dialog, which is typically an intelligent noir style. Generally, his characters speak in sharp, abrupt, and yet complex sentences that leave important details unsaid and which say something larger about the characters no matter what topic they are discussing. Thus, in Ronin, every word uttered by Robert DeNiro tells us he is a man with vast experience and incredible skills. Mamet’s characters in Glengarry Glen Ross detail their failed lives as they beat around the bush about revenge they'll never take and disguise their real concerns in fake talk of insults to their dignity.

The Spanish Prisoner is different. The dialog used by these characters lacks the depth and vision of Mamet’s other characters. Other than the things they tell us specifically, we know nothing about these people. But that’s not the real problem. The real problem arises when Mamet tries to insert depth by having his characters utter cryptic sounding but entirely ridiculous quotes. “I put a thief in my mouth to steal my brain.” What does this mean? It means he's hung over. When Susan the secretary says “my troika was pursued by wolves,” what do you think she's referring to? Nothing, she's just delivering snacks. The script is littered with these lines. It’s like Mamet sat around coming up with cryptic lines and then dumped them into the dialog at random.

Indeed, with characters passing these kinds of quotes back and forth, none of the relationships seem real. In real life, the most common response to these kinds of lines would have been “huh” rather than the firing back of a counter line. This makes the whole story feel “acted.” And forget emotion because it’s hard to show anger or passion when you speak in sentences like: “beware of all ventures requiring new clothes.” Even characters like the FBI agents speak in riddles when more common word usage would be appropriate. In the end, this feels like Mamet is trying to show us how clever he can be at writing lines, but in the process he fails to write effective dialog.

Arrogant Casting

Finally, we come to the cast. Different issues drive casting. Money plays a big role, as does the desirability of the parts and the tastes of the director. In this instance, however, the casting feels arrogant. I say this because Mamet includes several actors who are playing against type, and it feels like Mamet did this just to prove that he could make it work. For example, Ed O’Neill (Married With Children) is called upon to play an FBI team leader, but he lacks the gravitas to escape his Al Bundy role. Rebecca Pidgeon is cast as Susan Ricci, the secretary/love interest/temptress, a role for which she is entirely unsuited. Felicity Huffman is similarly miscast as an FBI agent. A Japanese actress is cast to play a character with an unbelievable, ultra-heavy Texas accent for no apparent reason.

Steve Martin plays Jimmy Dell. Now, in truth, Martin is brilliant. Prior to this film, I viewed him as a rather poor actor who could only play the “put-upon guy.” Yet here he plays a suave and brilliant businessman, and he does it incredibly well. But his success doesn’t change the fact that like the others, he was cast in a role for which he appears unsuited. It was as if Mamet decided to cast inappropriate actors just to show he had the skill to pull this off. And the problem with this is that several of these people are jarring in the roles they play and that makes them difficult to believe, and I'm constantly left feeling that Mamet is basically telling me how great he is.

Conclusion

Let me stress that you should not read this review as a condemnation. I really like this film and I highly recommend it. But I feel the film artificially limits my ability to love it because of these entirely avoidable flaws. Had Mamet stopped telling me how intelligent he is, then this could have been a great movie. As it is, it’s a good movie which wasted its potential to become a great movie. In fact, it’s probably screaming out for a remake.