Spoilers ahead forThe Untouchables,The Spanish Prisoner, andHouse Of Games.

The person who can close it.

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Your names Levene?

he asks a few moments later.

You call yourself a salesman, you son of a bitch?

Its a world stripped of any safety nets, fuelled by testosterone, adrenaline, and caffeine.

Mainstream audiences unfamiliar with his work were given a crash course in the Mamet milieu in 1987sThe Untouchables.

The gleam in this razor is Robert De Niros Capone.

Somebody messes with me, he tells a group of reporters, Im gonna mess with them.

Somebody steals from me.

Im gonna say you stole, not talk to them for spittin on the sidewalk.

Building to what is arguably the films most shocking scene, Mamets script creates an atmosphere crackling with tension.

A man stands alone at the plate.

This is the time for what?

There he stands alone.

But in the field, what?

Part of a team.

The stands are full of fans.

What does he have to say?

Im goin out there for myself.

I get nowhere unless the team wins.

Words are italicised, the emphasis changing the whole meaning of lines, like notes in a song.

What do you mean?

Have I talked to him about this [Pause]Aaronow: Yes.

[Pause] As an idea.

I used you, he confesses.

And you learned things about yourself that youd rather not know.

Im sorry for that.

You say I acted atrociously.

Yes, I did.

I do it for a living.

Again, the conman is remorseless and matter of fact about what he has done.

I enjoy doing it actually, but thank you for your concern, he taunts.

Lang on business trips: Nobody going on a business trip would have been missed if he never arrived.

1997 also saw the arrival ofThe Edgein cinemas.

The film displayed another hallmark of Mamet: the revelling in the arcane details of a particular world.

We want the lid lifted and the secrets laid bare.

InThe Edge, knowledge grants that most fundamental of powers: the power to survive.

Green knows therefore that, without him, he will never make it out of the wilderness alive.

Mamets world, while masculine, is not without its good female characters.

The meaning and subtext of earlier scenes gain interesting new possible meanings when re-examined in light of later developments.

Mamets most incandescent creation might just be salesman Ricky Roma, portrayed inGlengarry Glen Rossby Al Pacino.

Its a world of clock watchers.