TODAY'S NUGGET: Rainmaker (1997) - How to Show a Character Revealing Knowledge

[Quick Summary: While studying to take the bar exam, Rudy takes on a case of a dying leukemia patient whose insurance company refused to pay for treatment.]

What is the most interesting way to show a character revealing knowledge, especially when he/she knows something that the audience does not?

I found a few clues in this script:

1) The character does not need to explain everything. It leaves some mystery!

2) Allow for the audience to make the leap of logic (but don't require huge leaps of logic that no one can follow).

Notice below:

1) In the first scene, Rudy has an idea who is wiretapping his phone, but he does not tell us.  Instead, there is a cut to a conversation with Rudy and Deck.

2) This leap is easy to follow: Rudy thinks he knows who the wiretapper is --> Rudy and Deck lay a trap for the wiretapper.

ex. INT. CLUB AMBER - DAY

Rudy, Deck and Butch are seated in a corner booth, having drinks and looking at the performers.

BUTCH: The bugging device is manufactured in Czechoslovakia, medium grade in quality, and feeds a transmitter located somewhere close by.  It wasn't planted by cops or feds.

DECK: Someone else is listening.

Rudy is stunned.

BUTCH: Who else would it be?

RUDY: I've got an idea. Go to a pay phone...                              
                                                                                             DISSOLVE TO:

EXT. PAY PHONE - DAY

Deck is at an outdoor pay phone.

DECK (on phone): Just checking in. you need anything from downtown?

INT. RUDY'S OFFICE - DAY

Rudy is on the phone, talking to Deck. He's sewing a button on his jacket.

RUDY: Nah. Oh, guess who wants to settle now?

DECK (O.S.): Who?

RUDY: Dot Black.

DECK (O.S.)(incredulous and phony): Dot Black?

RUDY: Yeah, I stopped by this morning to check on her, took her a fruitcake. She said she just doesn't have the willpower to suffer through the trial, wants to settle right now.

DECK (O.S.): How much?

RUDY: Said she'd take a hundred and seventy five...

WHAT I'VE LEARNED: This is a much more creative way of showing what Rudy knows ("I think I know who it is" ---> lay trap) rather than boring exposition.

Rainmaker (1997)(1st draft, dated 7/11/96)
by Francis Ford Coppola
Adapted from the novel by John Grisham