The 1987 directorial debut of Pulitzer and Tony award-winning playwright and Oscar-nominated screenwriter David Mamet plays on the writer’s fascination with confidence schemes and criminal psychology. Lindsay Crouse, Mamet’s then-wife, is psychologist and author Margaret Ford, who visits a gambling hall in order to help a patient. Joe Mantegna, a veteran of Mamet’s stage plays, costars as gambler and con artist Mike, who tries to scam Margaret out of $6,000 in a poker game and ends up allowing her to play a role in a major con that involves $80,000 and a wealthy businessman (J.T. Walsh) who turns out to have his own secret agenda. The plot twists and turns, and the characters are constantly playing roles within roles, from the impersonal mask of the psychiatrist pushing her patients to probe further, to the gamblers bluffing their way through hands of cards, criminal schemes, and seductions. The screenplay features the same terse, rhythmic volleys of stylized dialogue from Mamet’s stage plays, at times sounding like song lyrics with their repetitions and call-and-response patterns. Mamet directs with a stripped-down visual style to match his pared-down dialogue, always appearing to show the audience everything in a straightforward manner while using misdirection and dramatic sleight-of-hand to mask the real story. This Blu-ray debut from the Criterion Collection is dedicated to Ricky Jay, the late magician and historian who both costarred and served as the consultant on confidence games. Extras include a 2007 audio commentary by Mamet, archival interviews with Crouse and Mantegna from 2007, a documentary short made during the film’s production, and a booklet with an essay by critic Kent Jones. Recommended. (S. Axmaker)
House of Games
Criterion, 102 min., R, DVD or Blu-ray: $39.95 Volume 34, Issue 5
House of Games
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