The Spanish Prisoner

Writer/director David Mamet returns to House of Games land with this insubstantial but entertaining drama about a byzantine con game. Naive Campbell Scott has just invented a MacGuffin that could earn a bundle for his company, though boss Ben Gazzara has yet to assure him of a bonus for his work. Often derided by himself and others as a boy scout, Scott's the perfect patsy for a ring of industrial spies out to separate him from the sole copy of the formula.

Who can he trust? Mysterious millionaire Steve Martin, who offers to help him get his due from the company? Fawning secretary Rebecca Pidgeon (Mamet's wife)? Wily pal and company lawyer Ricky Jay (the cardsharp and House of Games co-star)? Federal agent Felicity Huffman? If the triple-cross plotting is less cunning, or the emotional stakes lower, than in House of Games, Prisoner is still a lot of fun, with its cast clearly enjoying the artifice of scam-as-theater as much as audiences will -- and afterward we'll all lie about how we figured out the scheme and the players long before the clueless Scott did. Actually, there are surprises all the way to the ending, which manages to make the Logan Airport water shuttle look as colorful and exciting as the locale of a Hitchcock finale. At the Avon and Jane Pickens.

-- Gary Susman