Friday, February 28th 2025

The Spanish Prisoner

The Spanish Prisoner is a stylish, twisty, paranoid, and dizzyingly complex confidence-game thriller from acclaimed writer-director David Mamet. Joe (Campbell Scott) has invented a never-explained financialization instrument or “process” that will reap untold riches for his corporate bosses. Although feeling increasingly vulnerable as the naive junior partner, Joe fantasizes about joining the ranks of the ultra wealthy. Meanwhile, he strikes up a friendship with rich, worldly, and cooly confident Jimmy (Steve Martin), who mentors Joe on the finer points of living it large. Pretty soon, a high stakes game of corporate espionage develops that puts Joe’s very life on the line. With dialogue written in that staccato, jittery style known as “Mamet-speak,” The Spanish Prisoner delivers a suspense plot worthy of Hitchcock, fully earning its many twists and turns. Keeping the audience guessing throughout, The Spanish Prisoner is utterly absorbing from start to finish.