Spartan

David Mamet first caught my attention when he did a small grifter film called House of Games. It was released three years prior to The Grifters and I am quite certain that The Grifters took a lot of inspiration from House of Games. The Grifters had a high priced cast and more money was spent on the production but it was not quite as good as Mamet's masterpiece. Later, I would learn that Mamet would go on to write some of the best dialogue in all of film with movies like The Untouchables (just like a Wop, brings a knife to a gunfight), The Heist ( everyone loves money, that's why they call it money) and my favourite Mamet film, Glengarry Glenross ( I make $900,000 a year, that's why...). Mamet has a gift for the way people sound and the way they might deliver a line. Spartan continues his trend of interesting and crisp dialogue and fascinating characters. I have to agree with Roger Ebert when he says that this is Val Kilmer's best performance since Tombstone. He nails the character Scott, to a tee. Where as many action thrillers are about guns and explosions and certain bad acting, this is more about the characters. I am not saying that dumb action thrillers aren't fun sometimes, because they are. But if you like films that treat you like you already know what you need to know, and then proceed to show you things that you don't, then Spartan, like The Bourne Identity, is a film that you should enjoy.

Val Kilmer plays perhaps a member of the Secret Service, or perhaps he is just one of those covert operatives that is so good at what he does that he is just an invisible spook who shows up to do a job that others have trouble with. Mamet has given us a character that is so exemplary and pensive and good at what he does that he is the paradigm that all others in his line of work should emulate. There is no hesitation with him. He is driven and he is serious and like The Terminator, he will not stop, ever, until he has finished the job.

In this film, that job is to rescue the president's daughter, who was kidnapped while the Secret Service agent watching over her claims he was sleeping while she disappeared. But what the real reason is we may never know. There is the possibility that her disappearance may have political ramifications that would go as high up as the President himself. It is learned that Laura Newton may have been kidnapped in a scheme that involves an international sex trade with American women. The kidnappers do not know they have the president's daughter. And that may complicate things.

What makes Kilmer's character so fascinating is the way Mamet writes him. This is a man who has seen much and done much and when the time calls for it, he does not hesitate to use whatever force is necessary to acquire information. He hunts down bar owners, prostitution ring leaders and terrorists. He kills death row inmates to get information, he roughs up middle aged women who hold keys to the case and he holds an extreme form or prejudice towards anyone who may be a link in solving the case. This is a job to Scott and he treats it like that. I think this is the fundamental difference in a film like Spartan and many other less intelligent films that try to glamorize political espionage thrillers. This film talks and sounds like you are literally witnessing what happens behind closed doors. It gives you the feeling that what are witnessing is everything that does not get reported in the papers. This is about as raw as it gets and Mamet can take full credit for writing and directing the film as beautifully as he did and Val Kilmer can be proud of what he brought to the table.

This is one of the best films of the young 2004 and while it will be forgotten soon enough, when it comes out on video, it is a film that must be seen.

9/10

This is a competent political thriller written and directed by the talented David Mamet with a strong central performance from Val Kilmer as an American secret agent with a direct and brutal style of operation. From the opening sequence of a woman running through woods (like "Silence Of The Lambs"), this is a taut tale which never lets up the pace, with strong violence and a number of plot twists along a road with plenty of blood and betrayal, and the music by Mark Isham adds real atmosphere. But there are no great action sequences or memorable lines of dialogue to lift the film to a higher level. Nevertheless the movie deserves a higher profile that it is receiving so far.

'Spartan' may be the best spy movie ever made by a practicing playwright/director. Director and frequent screen writer David Mamet ('House of Games,' 'State and Main,' 'Spanish Prisoner,' 'Heist,') has crafted a thriller peppered with his stylized, epigrammatic dialogue that takes on the presidency and world corruption in equal parts of vitriol and savvy. The Pulitzer Prize winner of 'Glengarry Glen Ross' shows he can keep suspense without sacrificing intelligence.

When special ops officer Scott (Val Kilmer, 'Wonderland') describes himself as no 'planner. I ain't a thinker. I never wanted to be,' I knew I was in Mamet territory, where the speeches are street-poetic, terse, and redolent of subtext. Scott eventually has to be more than just an obedient Spartan, as he moves to the conscientious soldier who begins to see much more than just the kidnapping of the president's daughter.

Mamet lets us see that this plot is much more than a potboiler about the lost daughter of a lascivious, ruthless president, for it comments on the hidden forces behind the electoral process. Typical of Mamet, there is much more than what the eye thinks it sees. In fact, I must remind myself to have students write essays about appearance and reality in Mamet's films.

Kilmer is once more a surprise--he is one of our most underrated film actors. When he played an FBI agent in 'Thunderheart,' I was impressed by his low-key interpretation of a Native American in hiding. I am slowly becoming a fan by shedding my feelings that after successfully playing Jim Morrison, he could never successfully play anyone else. As Scott he too must shed his old ways from being a 'worker bee' to being an operative affecting world politics by following his instincts rather than his orders.

Some might claim Mamet loads his dramatic dice with contrived plot twists. I claim he develops his characters with such precision and care that his plots exemplify 'distributed exposition,' where each turn is another piece of the character puzzle.

Denys Arcand must be credited for bathing me in languid prose in 'Barbarian Invasion.' David Mamet must be credited for reinvigorating me with muscular prose. Both writers outstrip David Koepp's lame attempt to reveal a writer in heat in 'Secret Window,' starring Johnny Depp as a Stephen King surrogate.

The title 'Spartan' has several possible meanings, including the Battle of Thermopylae allusion in the film. However, the one I like best is the reference to Spartan lawgiver Lycurgus, who said, 'Those who are trained and disciplined in the proper discipline can determine what will best serve the occasion.' Mamet best serves this occasion with a superior thriller about a man of discipline serving his country in spite of itself.

David Mamet's Spartan had me leaving the theater thinking 'yeah, it was a good movie, some things I didn't understand'. Perhaps that's Mamet's intention- he's one of the reigning rulers of writers who use calculated, cool twists in storytelling- but I felt the moments in the film where I wasn't surprised so much by the turns taken. Not to say Spartan doesn't have some surprises (a few elements, such as a couple of deaths and a revelation or two which I won't put down here), and as a visual storyteller I got involved in the tension building with Val Kilmer's situation.

Kilmer, playing both mentor to training rangers and "worker-bee" to the United States government's special op's, is put on the case of the kidnapping of the President's daughter. It needs to be solved before the media grabs it, but it may not be that easy. Kilmer's Scott is a little more distant in tone and style sometimes, thinking of things to say to people that could border on a hack's cliche, yet Mamet isn't unforgivable in all the dialog. What dissapointed me were some of his choices in shots - he's not always as subtle as you might've thought in his cut-aways and use of music. While this is different territory in subject matter (dealing with a thriller on a political, topical scale), some of the tricks Mamet was pulling seemed stagey, and more predictable than he's known for.

Should people rush to theatres to see Spartan? Depends- for fans of Kilmer there's a lingering aura of understatement, concern, of a character who has been following rules his whole life, and it's not that bad. Derek Luke is a formidable supporting presence. Ed O'Neill strikes up some dramatic credit amid his post-Married with Children days. William H. Macy could've deserved a little more screen time to emphasize his importance to the story. And Kristen Bell is believable as the torn daughter. The script isn't rapid fire Mamet in delivery and tone, so it is at a pace that will dissapoint those who are looking for non-stop thrills. Maybe my grade is un-fair- the material does seek to be seen again- but I just didn't get that it was top-shelve stuff. B

David Mamet ("Heist", "The Spanish Prisoner") has a deserved reputation as a non-traditional writer/director whose singular style indelibly marks all of his work. With his latest movie, "Spartan", Mamet again proves his quirkiness with a unique mysterious thriller.

Although more ambitious than most plots, the premise is not extremely out of the ordinary. The collegiate First Daughter has gone missing, and black ops government agents must track her down before the press unearths the story that could harm her. Val Kilmer plays the soldier of the manhunt, the talented military worker bee who takes orders from a variety of recognizable faces such as William H. Macy, Ed O'Neill, and Clark Gregg. In their search for the girl, Kilmer and company weave through a (perhaps too) winding maze of half-truths that have come to characterize Mamet works.

Because Kilmer, in the lead role, rarely knows more about the investigation than his direct task, the audience sits in a similar situation, never ahead of the story. This ignorance glues the viewer to the screen and causes the hour and forty minutes to zip by at a surprisingly smooth and quick pace. However that same ignorance also prevents the film from making what could have been a deeper connection. With little to no background information on virtually all the characters, there is no emotional investment in anyone. What happens is more important than to whom it happens. The fact that the film still compels despite this is a testament to Mamet's taut script.

His signature almost-but-not-quite-stilted dialogue is less dominant and more accessible than in other pictures, perhaps because of the high-strung nature of the government operations. In common situations though, Mamet's semi-formal words still shine. There is very little cliché dialogue, even in common situations, and what triteness exists is often swallowed by the surrounding originality. Kilmer occasionally falls prey to the easily entangling awkwardness, although that stumbling is not significantly out of character. The supporting cast, many of whom previously worked with Mamet, are stellar in their delivery, particularly Macy and Gregg.

"Spartan", like many of Mamet's movies, is fully entertaining but due to the slightly off-kilter nature of his work, fails to fully suck in the viewer, piquing interest without engrossing. You truly want to know what happens, but you don't care greatly.

Bottom Line: Call it 7 of 10 for a good but not great film.