akademic78 (SPOILER FREE) Seen a couple reviews here, specifically one where the author claims "dreadful acting". Funnily enough, the same guys gave "QoS" a higher rating than Scorcese's "Casino". Couldn't resist but to put my two cents in, while laughing at clueless wannabe-critics like this.This is one of Mamet's best. It's not for kids with ADD, much like the guy who claimed "dreadful acting". It's a relatively slow-paced, compact, but short and sweet con movie. Mamet's writing is delivered by a cast that understands very well what they're in for - a con movie.Much like the protagonist, the viewer should focus on small psychological details - the way the characters speak, move, act, blink. All the clues are there, and yes, although it's somewhat predictable, as with any Mamet's film, the beauty comes from the writing. It's the little nuances with which he directs his cast that make the writing shine.Don't listen to wannabe-critics, they're clueless. This is a well-written and well-acted film.

tomsview I didn't know David Mamet's name before I saw this movie, but since then I have sought out everything I could find. However, nothing ever delivered the surprise of seeing "House of Games" for the first time. I have to admit, this film got me in completely and I didn't see the tricks coming until they happened – I got my money's worth.Briefly, without giving too much away, the story is about Margaret Ford (Lindsay Crouse), a psychologist and best-selling author who becomes involved with Mike (Joe Mantegna), a charismatic gambler and con artist. Although she seems a fairly grounded person she becomes intrigued with his lifestyle. Before the surprise ending, as Mike says, she learned things about herself that she would rather not know. As Margaret takes a walk on the wild side, the landscape changes from the clean architecture of her very ordered, sophisticated and academic environment to the rain-slicked, neon-lit mean streets of Mike's world.The unusual rhythms of the dialogue, which often sound overly formal or precise, add to the off-centre feeling of the film. Now I realise that those speech patterns are a key part of Mamet's art and are even more pronounced in a film such as "The Spanish Prisoner", but the first time you encounter it, you are struck by it's strangeness. If the dialogue reminds me of any non-Mamet film it is Clifford Odet's script for "Sweet Smell of Success". On that film, when the director was worried that Odet's dialogue would sound stagy or exaggerated, Odets told him, 'Play it real fast. Play it on the run and it will work just fine'. I think the effectiveness of Mamet's dialogue is all in the playing as well. The theme of 'don't believe everything you see' popped up in other Mamet films following "House of Games" including the unsettling "Homicide" and the offbeat "The Spanish Prisoner". However, by the time he got around to "Heist", I think he had gone to the well once too often; the surprises there seemed a little too trite.But, "House of Games" is unique. It's as clever as "The Sting", but with a harder edge. It's a film you can watch again and again and always find another aspect to enjoy.

Neddy Merrill David Mamet's electric writing stays at the forefront of this smart, quiet movie about con men and a smart woman for falls in with them. In the meantime, a range of subtexts get discussed including the nature of street smarts versus "intelligence", the acceptance of reality as it is presented including it rules versus creative thinking and forging one's own way as well as gender politics and some other deep thoughts. All of this comes wrapped in a crackling game of cross and double-cross as Joe Matenga's variously-named anti-hero spins an ultimately deadly web. In short, a very good firm for fans of film noir or just those who like a good con job.

elshikh4 *** This review may contain spoilers about (Double Indemnity – 1944) too ***Remember (Double Indemnity – 1944)? It's where the urban man discovered that he could be easily deceived by his dearest ones. Since that date, many urban men and women, in other movies, lived the same trick again and again. Yet, as times goes by, some of them learned the lesson, out of watching too many movies I think!, then developed an armor, and – why not – got to deceive the deceiver too. (House of Games) presents the phase where the played-with becomes a player, but does this movie play it right ?! This was originally intended to be a larger-budget movie with many "name" actors, but writer / director (David Mamet) chose to cast his wife (Lindsay Crouse) and friend (Joe Mantegna). Not necessarily a good decision! I didn't like the performance of (Crouse) as the heroine. Yes, the character is for an outwardly cold woman who suppresses her reactions, but that doesn't mean that the actress must be cold and suppress her reactions! I watched (Joe Mantegna) as an impostor before; a mild – if not idiot – one in some movies, and a bloody violent one in other. This time he didn't bring something else his known goods. Let alone that his charisma didn't help him being a lead, so he couldn't provide the masculine charm to convince us that he's that lover-in-predicament (especially after the murder's plot). Yet, still the worst of the movie is its climax.We have a con-is-born situation. Although that female psychiatrist, Margaret, looks initially innocent, but she has some impostor hidden inside of her, supposedly long time age. OK. But I believe that that character had to be beaten by the experience's intelligence of the first, and senior, impostor; Mike. Since the beginning we follow the interlock of the psychiatrist / the scientific experience, with the conman / the practical experience. If both of them are natural born impostors, one of them obviously has a primitive practical expertise, and I do mean Margaret. That's why I see that the gun, which she takes from Mike's partner and shots Mike himself with at the climax, isn't a real gun in the first place, or it is one that has false bullets (like the one which the fake cop, played by J.T. Walsh, was holding). Because Mike's death – in my viewpoint – had to be pure acting since that psychiatrist who declared finally her truth as a criminal, imposter, and killer doesn't hold a candle to those experienced conmen who practiced the profession longer than what she did.It's close to Double Indemnity's plot. At that 1940s movie there was a man who became a victim of a woman and her partner to kill someone so they may win something. Here, a woman became a victim of a man and his partner to kill someone – falsely – so they may win something. The difference this round is that the victim is smarter. She got to payback, kill the planners themselves and win everything. It's clear that (Mamet) wants to prove that the evil guy is inside of us, and if gets free will practice his games successfully on others, and if has science will be the cleverest player of them all. But I believe that the older criminal – even if lost the scientific systematization or the methodical mentality – is more capable of hoaxing that who's still a student in crime school. That master's experience must defeat the inexperienced (like the green sailor) or the new beginners (like the heroine herself) whether the degrees of evil inside of both, the master and the others, were equaled or not. Because – simply – no one wins but the lucky, and no one "always" wins but the clever player.It's as unpersuasive as going into a gang of pro pickpockets, while being no pickpocket, and pulling off stealing all of them ! Well, it's a Hollywood dream then. Therefore if – for instance – the last scene, of the restaurant, was kind of a late flashback; that flawed climax could have been more persuasive and realistic. Whatever the addition might be, the movie needed to root well that that psychiatrist was an old con indeed; she merely didn't have a big chance before, and the ones who played her didn't know that about her earlier. Overall, I liked how (Mamet) studied so many stings, scams and con jobs, tightened the matter of obsession from start to finish, and mastered making so sedate crime movie. However, I didn't think that the shocking climax is logical or solidly built. It's something to shock anyway, and hit the viewer with the movie's main moral about the devil in us. Hence, it serves finely as a revenge for all the inexperienced and – mostly – the previously hoaxed out there. To tell them that "you can deceive too, and – of all people – the ones who deceived you before, and without having any previous experience too". So it feels eventually as a perfect Revenge of The Nerds, not Revenge of The ones who-just-look-outwardly Nerds !