‘The Spanish Prisoner’ is a deliciously wicked film noir directed by David Mamet, who also wrote the film’s screenplay. Like the first movie he directed, ‘House of Games’, this movie also tells the story of con men playing games. Mamet received the Edgar Allan Poe award for this movie’s screenplay.

Do you remember getting an email from someone claiming to be a lawyer, informing you that a person with your last name died in Uganda? If you give this ‘lawyer’ a sum of money, you will be rewarded with a substantial portion of the dead person’s estate. It turns out that this con has an interesting origin. The original version of this con game, where a person tricks an unfortunate victim using the victim’s greed and vanity, used to be called ‘The Spanish Prisoner’. The plot of this movie is centered on another version of the Spanish Prisoner extortion game.

The story begins with Joe Ross (Campbell Scott), a nerdy spectacled Engineer, boarding a flight to the island of St. Estèphe for a work retreat. At the retreat, Joe Ross unveils his unnamed “process” to his boss Klein (Ben Gazzara) and some higher-ups in the company. This “process” is something Joe came up with that could place his company well above its competition and earn them a ‘substantial’ amount of money.

While taking a walk along the island’s coast with overtly loquacious and overtly flirtatious secretary, Susan Ricci (Rebecca Pidgeon), Joe clicks a photo of her posing with the ocean in the backdrop. Just then a stranger (Steve Martin) approaches Joe and proposes to buy Joe’s camera for a thousand dollars.

Annoyed by the offer, Joe hands the camera to the man in disgust. Later, the stranger accosts Joe again, apologizes, and offers to buy Joe a drink. Joe accepts. The man introduces himself as Jimmy Dell. Like Joe, Jimmy is also based in New York. Jimmy claims that while Joe photographed Susan, he had accidentally captured Dell in the company of Dell’s mistress. As the mistress was the wife of a businesswoman, Jimmy did not want any evidence of his secret tryst with her on the island.

Jimmy then hands Joe a packet and asks the latter to deliver it to his sister in New York. Jimmy tells Joe that his sister is a star tennis player and that the packet has a book by Don Budge, the legendary Tennis player. Charming Jimmy makes an impression on Joe as a successful individual. Jimmy also invites Joe to join him for dinner in New York a few days after both of them return from the island. That evening Joe sees Susan having dinner with a woman (Felicity Huffman) she met at the resort. The woman claims to be an FBI agent, apparently in jest.

On the ride back in a private jet, Susan, who is seated beside Joe, makes a series of outrageous statements. Susan first suggests that we don’t really know who someone really is. She then states that the woman who dined with her is, in fact, an FBI agent. She hands Joe the woman’s business card, which identifies the woman as an officer in the FBI. She then makes Joe nervous by proposing that he, Joe, could be an unsuspecting ‘mule’ unwittingly smuggling illegal merchandise into the US by accepting Jimmy’s packet. A panicked Joe tears open the package and is relieved to find a book by Don Budge in it. He realizes that he has damaged the book in his haste. In the book, he finds a note Jimmy has left for his sister. Upon reading the note, Joe realizes that Jimmy is playing matchmaker, trying to set him, Joe, up with his sister.

Upon returning to New York, Joe buys a new copy of the book he damaged and has it gift-wrapped. He then visits Jimmy’s sister’s building and leaves the new copy of the book with the doorman, asking him to deliver the book to her.

When Joe goes to meet Jimmy for dinner, Jimmy pretends not to know him. Later, when Joe confronts Jimmy, the latter claims that he’s angry that Joe left the book with the doorman. Jimmy proclaims that he expected Joe to hand the book to his sister personally.

On one occasion, Susan arrives unexpectedly at Joe’s doorstep, telling him that she ‘happened to be in the neighborhood’. She then proceeds to seduce Joe, claiming that she is in love with him. When Joe rejects her advances, Susan tells him that he should visit her apartment when he just wants ‘to talk to someone’.

After settling their differences, Joe’s friendship with Jimmy becomes stronger. They begin to meet regularly. At work, Joe is becoming increasingly frustrated that Klein has not given him a pay raise as a reward for inventing the process. Soon, Joe confides this to Jimmy. Jimmy proposes that he can put Joe in contact with a certain attorney who can help Joe retain rights to his creation.

Joe accepts the proposal. Jimmy tells Joe to meet him and the attorney at a certain clandestine location. Joe is to bring the document that details the “proposal” to the meeting. The document is shown to be a notebook covered in a bright red leather jacket. The pages of the notebook contain what appears to be a lot of mathematical equations.

As Joe makes his way through a park to meet Jimmy and the attorney, a man on a ski board bumps into Joe. Moments later, Joe realizes that the document is no longer in his possession. Joe later finds out that this so-called sister of Jimmy does exist in reality.

When Joe approaches the police, he is informed that he now stands accused of stealing intellectual property from his own company. Jimmy has conned Joe using a masterful variation of the Spanish Prisoner trick. Jimmy and his cronies have rendered Joe a patsy using Joe’s own vanity about his genius and his refined demeanor. Joe is utterly devastated. With no other option at his disposal, Joe visits Susan’s apartment seeking a way out.

Can Susan help Joe escape his predicament? The rest of the plot answers this question. ‘The Spanish Prisoner’ is a delightful thriller that packs a series of twists from beginning to end. It is another masterpiece from writer-director David Mamet that you should not miss.