journal features

movie review - The Spanish Prisoner

the journal of Michael Werneburg

twenty-eight years and a million words

Toronto, 1999.07.30

When you watch some of Martin's earlier works, it's incredible how far he's come. This is a good thriller about a mathematician, believe it or not. He invents a process, and starts getting in trouble. Why? Because the process is a 'market'-related thing, which is worth so much money the mathematician has to write it down to convey the figure to his employers.

Immediately, corporate thieves (Martin at el) turn up, and the fun begins.

Martin and Scott are an excellent duo, and the plot moves along so nicely through betrayals and crazy developments that it's easy to ignore the obvious fact that this is just another in a series of flicks where a decent guy gets screwed by cons and set up to take a fall for a crime he hasn't committed. It's a worthwhile flick.

Recommended.

rand()m quote

Meaning is not something you stumble across, like the answer to a riddle or the prize in a treasure hunt. Meaning is something you build into your life. You build it out of your own past, out of your affections and loyalties, out of the experience of humankind as it is passed on to you, out of your own talent and understanding, out of the things you believe in, out of the things and people you love, out of the values for which you are willing to sacrifice something. The ingredients are there. You are the only one who can put them together into that unique pattern that will be your life. Let it be a life that has dignity and meaning for you. If it does, then the particular balance of success or failure is of less account.

—John Gardner