In light of the 2000 election debacle, a throwaway gag in State And Main, writer-director David Mamet's caustically satirical morality play, seems almost eerily prescient. Smitten with a local in small-town Vermont, a screenwriter for a beleaguered Hollywood production fumbles to explain why the lead actress is lying naked on his hotel bed. The woman blithely accepts his ridiculous story, which stuns him enough that he wonders out loud why she would believe something so patently absurd. She replies, "Well, so is our electoral process, but we still vote." Mamet's densely layered script sings with such sharp little incidental exchanges, quick set-ups and punchlines to color his more sweeping satirical agenda. But on closer inspection, a jab at the electoral process may not be a throwaway after all. Ostensibly a screwball farce about Hollywood's invasion of Rockwellian America—too easy a target, particularly for a talent of Mamet's caliber—State And Main deepens into a timely statement on just the sort of compromise that would split a country right down the middle. As the story opens, unscrupulous director William H. Macy surveys the new location for his late-19th-century costume drama and seems pleased that it has all the settings he's looking for, most importantly a historic old mill needed for a crucial scene. Much to his chagrin, he discovers that the mill was burned down during a mysterious spate of fires in 1960, so he asks screenwriter Philip Seymour Hoffman if the scene is really necessary. The name of the film? The Old Mill. From there, Mamet piles on one complication after another, including a lead actor (Alec Baldwin) with a weakness for underage girls, a ditzy starlet (Sarah Jessica Parker) who demands an extra $800,000 to bare her oft-exposed breasts, and a local politician (Clark Gregg) hungry for a cut of the grosses. State And Main has all the expected (though still funny) potshots at Hollywood vanity and ruthlessness, and it's not always kind to the opportunistic townies, either. But at its core, the film has more in common with The Candidate than The Player, as it questions how much a person's ideals can be gutted and still be considered ideals. Supported by a terrific cast and Mamet's flair for rapid-fire dialogue, State And Main ticks along beautifully most of the way, until an implausible third-act twist nearly throws it off the rails. As a result, the dovetailing subplots land curiously flat, tapering off right when they should be gathering force for a big finish. But by then, Mamet has already won on points, even if he fails to score a knockout.