The Mask

Rating: Null/10 (4 April 2002)

Spoilers herein.
A de Palma film is always a gas. He cares not at all about the actors. The story is just an excuse for his real work, which concerns the appearance of things. His films are, therefore, purely cinematic, something others have called `sterile.'
And so it is here. The story is a trifle, a common bit about duplicity of the spymaster. The acting is deliberately flat, presumably to make producer Cruise not look bad. Each is allowed to find some old character: Reno finds Léon; Emmanuelle her Manon and so on. They rattle about in the past, each playing a role borrowed from another story.
The conceit behind the film is a group (in the TeeVee show) who create elaborate scenes that dupe the audience, correcting some deep wrong. No one can be trusted to be what they appear. The goal of the plot is to discover identities of who is who.
The film is three set pieces, a remarkably simple construction: Prague, London, Chunnel. The camera differs in each third, each exploring the space in a different way, each fooling us into believing the camera is ordinary. Usually he swoops and zooms are dramatically obvious, and are intended to reveal as in the remarkable `Snake Eyes.' Here, they are concealed, and used to conceal.
As an elaboration of the idea, much of the plot revolves around hidden `spectacle' cameras and peeloff masks.