With this screenplay David Mamet gives the traditional prison-break story his special blend of gripping suspense, slapdash buffoonery, and ingenious plotting. Bob, a vicious killer, cheats the electric chair by shooting his way out of the penitentiary, forcing two reluctant convicts to come along. Desperately dodging the cops, Ned and Jim reach a river that runs along the Canadian border. The bridge across it becomes their only hope of reaching safety, but a checkpoint guards the crossing. Mamet builds the tension to the breaking point with a series of sizzling surprises as time and again the escaped jailbirds fail by a hairsbreadth to slip past the guards. Disguised as priests, Ned and Jim are mistaken for two famous theologians attending the Feast of Our Lady of Sorrows at a local monastery. The wickedly funny Mamet takes his two heroes down a dizzying course of serpentine adventures, demonstrating once again his peerless mastery of the art of cinematic suspense.
Author
David Alan Mamet is an American author, essayist, playwright, screenwriter and film director. His works are known for their clever, terse, sometimes vulgar dialogue and arcane stylized phrasing, as well as for his exploration of masculinity. As a playwright, he received Tony nominations for Glengarry Glen Ross (1984) and Speed-the-Plow (1988). As a screenwriter, he received Oscar nominations for The Verdict (1982) and Wag the Dog (1997). Mamet's recent books include The Old Religion (1997), a novel about the lynching of Leo Frank; Five Cities of Refuge: Weekly Reflections on Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy (2004), a Torah commentary, with Rabbi Lawrence Kushner; The Wicked Son (2006), a study of Jewish self-hatred and antisemitism; and Bambi vs. Godzilla, an acerbic commentary on the movie business.
