A professional hostage negotiator in a nameless big city police department finds more than he bargains for while investigating the murder of an elderly Jewish shop owner. David Mamet's third film is both cerebral and exciting, but for the first time his confidence as a director may have actually surpassed his skills as a writer. To his credit Mamet (as director) refuses to rely on formula technique. He doesn't, for example, lean on the crutch of music cues to generate easy suspense, most likely because the dialogue itself is Mamet's music, although the deliberate, emphatic pacing of each word might have sounded totally bogus if the script weren't so well written. But it's a pity he didn't extend the same care for language to his story as well. The tricky plot, involving issues of race hatred and cultural identity, is certainly pessimistic (in a shallow sort of way), but it doesn't add anything new to the idea that Everyone Hates Everybody Else, and the irony of the final revelation is deflated by the massive coincidence of a vital clue being revealed as an innocent scrap of waste paper.
