Wolff rating: FAIR
Plot summary: Mathematician who has invented a very valuable process is ``caught in a web of deceit,'' if you pardon my cliche.
Biased, pithy comments: I sometimes like puzzle-box movies. Watching the director carefully shake detail after detail in front of you, showing you different angles on the story that make it mean different crazy things, can be quite interesting. In this case, however, I found the characters so unlikeable, the situation so alien, and the dialog so stilted that I was more impatient than enjoying myself. The final, deux ex machina ending is so preposterously unsatisfying that I wondered why I had sat through it that long just to get *there*, of all places. (Yeah, I know, you can see it as an extension of the rest of the con, but...nyeh, I still don't believe it.) Mamet fans will probably disagree. Me, I'd rather see an early Atom Egoyan film, or even Mamet's ``House of Games.''
Other Notes: So people tell me that Mamet characters, like Tarantino characters, are supposed to sound alien and odd. Hmmf. It just put me off, most of the time.
How many times I have seen it: x1
Starring: Campbell Scott, Rebecca Pidgeon, Steve Martin, Ben Gazzara, Ricky Jay.
Directed by: David Mamet