David Mamet - The Spanish Prisoner (1997)

When ambitious inventor Joe Ross arrives at the fictional Caribbean isle of St. Estèphe for a secret meeting to unveil a new industrial process, he is forced to confront a series of situations as he realizes he's been caught in a trap. He seeks out an FBI agent he met in St. Estèphe, and they devise a sting operation, but this move only hastens his descent into the quicksand.
Joe Ross ha inventado un nuevo y misterioso proceso para su compañía del que espera obtener unos grandes beneficios. El valor incalculable de su descubrimiento le hace temer que alguien se quiera apropiar de su idea. Todos los que le rodean, desde su jefe hasta su amigo, pasando por su secretaria e incluso el FBI, le ofrecen su apoyo pero, ¿son sus amigos o esconden oscuros secretos?. Joe se verá atrapado en medio de una peligrosa combinación de realidad y ficción.




Like David Mamet's debut feature House of Games, The Spanish Prisoner centers on an elaborate confidence game, and its labyrinthine plot is laden with twists and reversals. Reminiscent of The Usual Suspects and Hitchcock's The Man Who Knew Too Much and North by Northwest, The Spanish Prisoner is a film that will keep audiences guessing until the very end.




Meet Joe Ross (Campbell Scott), inventor of "The Process," a top-secret formula that's already got his boss Mr. Klein (Ben Gazzara) seeing dollar signs. But while he's flown Joe down to a secluded Caribbean island resort for a hush-hush meeting of big stockholders, Mr. Klein has only vague promises about cutting Joe in on some of the profits. Joe's a trusting guy, but he's starting to think that he might be getting shut out of the biggest thing that's ever happened to him. Taking a walk on the beach to mull things over, Joe encounters Jimmy Dell (Steve Martin), a mysterious, jet-setting businessman, and they make plans to meet in New York.




When, back in the city, Joe confides his troubles to Jimmy, Jimmy offers to help Joe fight to get what's his. But as his relationship with the company deteriorates, so does Joe's faith in the people around him–his colleague and confidant George (Ricky Jay), Klein, Jimmy, and even Susan (Rebecca Pidgeon), a secretary with a none-too-subtle crush on him. Are these people his friends, as they claim, or is there something darker underneath? As they all pledge to stand by him, Joe finds himself not knowing who to trust or where to turn, trapped in a world in which nothing and no one are what they seem.



Excelente thriller, de una factura de primera clase. Nadie en esta cinta es quien aparenta ser más que la víctima. De esta forma, Mamet construye personajes ambiguos y no hay una división clara entre los famosos “chicos buenos y chicos malos”. La misma víctima, Joe Ross, no es un “bueno” sino un tipo ambicioso que quiere su parte del león por haber creado un proceso industrial (nunca se aclara de que tipo o para que sirve).

Toda la trama y lo que a la víctima le sucede es porque los estafadores y ladrones juegan con la ambición de Joe Ross. Él mismo cae en la trampa por su carácter, a pesar de que intenta no involucrarse en algo que lo ponga en peligro.

Mamet crea una cinta en donde las vueltas de tuerca se dan una y otra vez como en el mejor cine negro.

Script/Guión: David Mamet
Music/Sonido: Carter Burwell
Cinematography/Fotografía: Gabriel Beristain
Cast/Reparto: Ben Gazzara, Felicity Huffman, Ricky Jay, Steve Martin, Rebecca Pidgeon, Campbell Scott