House of Games - 1987 - David Mamet

A bored psychiatrist, Dr. Margaret Ford(Lindsay Crouse), meets a confidence man, Mike(Joe Mantegna) through a patient with a gambling problem. Dr. Ford goes down to a pool hall to confront Mike after he threatens her patient. Mike has the doctor help him in his poker game. From that point on Dr. Ford is obsessed with the art of the con. She wants to see how the different scams work. Being that we are dealing with con men, it is easy to see where all of this is heading, but it is a fun ride.

David Mamet is an excellent writer and whenever he directs his scripts we get an interesting result. His writing is very stylized, but without the filter of a separate director any semblance of natural speech is gone. In House of Games a slip of the tongue holds meaning for the psychiatrist, but coming from Mamet characters not even a misplaced word fells like it is coming naturally. The look of the film is a throwback to an old, almost noir, style. Most of the movie takes place at night seemingly just after the rain has stopped. Music also adds to the mood of the film with horns that would not be out of place in a film made fifty years earlier.
7/10