Date: October 30th, 2024 12:05 AM
Author: cock of michael obama
a neo-noir suspense film, it was pretty bad and didn't work. mamet both wrote and directed it, but the fast-but-flat dialogue that worked so well in glengarry and in wag the dog didn't work here - it almost became self-parody. it felt like the actors were all reading script lines and they all sounded the same. many of the twists were predictable and others were wildly silly and unrealistic. the plot didn't gel.
I really like Ricky Jay as an actor, though, and he was used to good effect in Mamet's Heist (2001), which I previously reviewed. Mamet apparently casts Jay in many of his films in secondary roles.
Ebert liked the film a lot and he got his review wrong. this review by paul tatara has a better understanding of why it sucked: https://archive.ph/Izrl
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Spanish_Prisoner
(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5620784&forum_id=2#48257277)