Horribly written
The dialog seems to be overcooked, as if the director went back to the script, felt it was unclear, and fixed it be repeating the same line over and over again.
shareI could not agree with you more fully, agree with you more fully, agree with you more fully, I could not.
shareI think you might not be familiar with Mamet's writing style. All of his characters tend to speak the same lines over repeatedly and they all sound exactly the same (whether this is an intentional thing on the director's behalf commenting on the general sameness of people or laziness is merely speculative).Mamet has always been a student of the demimonde, as most if not all of his stories concern criminals in one form or another (House of Games, Glengarry Glen Ross,The Untouchables).
shareExactly right, bafflewit. These viewers just don't understand Mamet's writing style, nor appreciate its origins in his plays. They are just unwitting victims of pseudo-realist conventions in what passes for conversation in most movies made for American audiences in the past two decades. Mamet is not interested in this kind of realism, nor in making movies or plays based on it (thank God).
share[deleted]
Do you think the dialog in Shakespeare was actually the way people spoke? If so, then everyone who spoke would also be a great writer. I don't want David Mamet to write dialog that sounds like what I would hear on the street. His characters never talk over each other. They speak clearly and precisely. That's not the way things are in real life, but it isn't meant to be.
shareI agree...having studied Mamet in a playwriting class, even though his style isn't even close to my own, I totally appreciate what he does in terms of writing snappy dialogue. That was my favorite part of this movie. The actual plotting was kind of weak, but the dialogue sucked me right in.
share[deleted]