The_Other_Waldo_Pepper: Yes, that’s all fair.
I guess the ‘invisible ink’ idea expressed earlier in the thread is fair, too.
And apparently we all agree that Mamet didn’t consider the switch to be of primary importance.
By the way, is this the only time Steve Martin played an out-and-out slime-ball? At any rate, it wasn’t his usual role in movies. He was good at it, though.
I haven’t seen this movie, but from the comments I think I will seek it out. I’m not a super automatic fan of Mamet’ movies, but I like some of them. My favorite is Redbelt, if any of you haven’t seen it, you may like it. This movie has the right balance (for me) between a straight story and unanswered questions with dead end story lines. I.e. more of the former and less of the latter.
Concur.
And to the question, while it is a minor spoiler to say so (hence the blur), he certainly doesn’t come out of Novocaine smelling like a rose, though he is driven to what he does there, as I recall (it’s been a loooooooooooooong time since I saw it).
I never saw the 2001 movie you mention, but from the description it looks as though you’re quite right. And the mention of it reminded me that he played a sadistic dentist in the 1986 Little Shop of Horrors, so a ‘bad guy’ (or at least not ‘good guy’) role there, too.
I guess I’d still say that he doesn’t typically play villains in realistic (as opposed to black-comedy) films, anyway.