SOURCE: Combs, Richard. “Framing Mamet.” Sight and Sound 1, no. 7 (November 1991): 16-17.

In the following review, Combs examines Homicide and House of Games, focusing particularly on Mamet's theater background and its influence on his cinematic approach.

The plot of Homicide hinges on a word. But between the beginning and the end of the film the word changes. ‘GROFAZ’ is a clue that police officer Bobby Gold finds on a strip of paper while prowling a rooftop in search of a sniper. Or at least there might have been a sniper, and he might have been taking shots at a Jewish family, one of whom, an old woman who ran a corner store in a poor black neighbourhood, has just been brutally killed.

“It never stops, does it? Against the Jews,” comments the old woman's granddaughter. But Officer Gold, himself a Jew, resists the idea of conspiracy, and anyway he...