The Spanish Prisoner / Heist

THE SPANISH PRISONER, 1997, Jean Doumanian Productions, 110 min. Campbell Scott plays an inventor worried that the company he works for is going to steal his work; Steve Martin is the enigmatic businessman Scott meets as he gets drawn into a web of psychological suspense. Mamet applies his unique sensibility to a Hitchcockian framework, and the result is a one-of-a-kind thriller that is utterly unpredictable and thoroughly entertaining.

HEIST, 2001, Warner Bros, 109 min. Gene Hackman, Delroy Lindo, Rebecca Pidgeon and Ricky Jay are members of an expert criminal gang who are longer on talent than they are on trust -- especially when new member Sam Rockwell and fence Danny DeVito get involved in the crew's last big heist. In one of the great action films of the decade (with wall-to-wall quotable dialogue), Mamet presents one of his most compelling studies yet of betrayal and its consequences.