Spartan (2004) Reviews

• Excellent and intelligent. Not for Bruckheimer fans.

  man-man-dot-org2005-04-24

  If you go by the plot, or by the casting (Val Kilmer's done his share of stupid actioners), you might well go into this expecting guns, explosions, and improbably ninja-esquire super-agents who parachute around and kill things with their teeth. But this is Mamet, so what you get instead is a sort of weird emotional flatland for almost two hours of film, with Kilmer doing an excellent (Val KILMER? Whoa!) job of portraying what top-level soldier/drones are like: emotionally neutral, physically economical, and not always all that bright. If you're looking for somebody hoisting a bazooka and wisecracking before he blows up the compound and saves the girl in the bikini while smashing the drug smuggling ring, this ain't your film, friend. It's very well written and extremely well acted, but also quiet, murky, and deliberately understated. Don't expect whiz-bang excitement or crackerjack dialogue. If you can shelve that and put yourself in the frame of mind of a Kurosawa samurai movie, where contemplation and futility take equal time with action and excitement, you'll find this movie a lot more rewarding.

• 'Spartan' may be the best spy movie ever made by a practicing playwright/director.

  jdesando2004-03-17

  '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.

• A thinking person's thriller

  baumer2004-03-16

  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

• Modern Spy Thriller

  el1sdf2004-10-18

  The excellent David Mamet returns to write and direct an entertaining spy thriller which puts fantasy fare such as the Bourne Identity to bed. Val Kilmer is good here, better than anything I can remember, but the real star here is Mamet. His direction is better here than Heist or State and Main, and the script more believable. It still crackles with Mamet's trademark dialogue but in this genre it seems to fit better. Excellent support cast all round, notably 'the girl' and Said Taghmaoui, the latter being one of my favourite character actors at present. The ending does seem abrupt, but by no means out of place. Critics argued that the plot is too complicated/ clever and that the lead is truly "Shallow Val" but this is selling the actor and the audience short. This was entertaining, with overtones of conspiracy which makes great viewing for people with similar tastes to myself. 10/10

• Excellent dialogue enlivens a solid, if unspectacular, thriller

  bob the moo2004-08-23

  Scott is a special operations soldier known for his professionalism, expertise and ability to get results. After a brief spell at a training facility, he is called in with the FBI to investigate the kidnapping of the president's daughter. Quickly it becomes evident that the kidnappers do not realize who they have and the race is on to recover her before the media and her captors realize what is happening, throwing Scott into a deadly political game. Whether it be the world of con-men, salesmen of filmmakers, David Mamet has an uncanny ability to write sharp screenplays that generally avoid cliché and raise the level of the film by his influence and so, as writer and director here, the film appeared to have potential to be very good. While I did really enjoy it, the film did have its weaknesses but, as is often the case, these are not in the areas where Mamet is traditionally strong. The plot starts very quickly and tough and continues at such a pace that I doubted it could keep it up but, although it dipped a bit at the midpoint, it quickly picked it up again. As a solid thriller the film delivers no real surprises and it's a measure of how cynical we are as a people to say that the idea of politicians manipulating events, the media and the voters for political gain does not so much count as a 'twist' as it does a given. However, Mamet's cynicism is well timed, as it comes at a time when belief in our politicians seems to be at a low and audiences will be likely to welcome the film's message that, although truth is often the first conflict of any action, it is never the only one. As a result of this the plot loses a lot of its impact as it pretty much goes where you expect it to even if it does it in a very effective fashion. The plot also falls down in the detail and I was a little irritated by some of the areas that were not filled out. For example I didn't understand the full background to the girl's kidnapping as some details contradicted other details within the story. Also some situations and characters are given far too little time and detail to be able to make the impact that the film demands of them – William H. Macy's character being the perfect example; he is meant to be the face of the conspiracy but has few lines until the end and, even then, you'll be none the wiser as to how he fits into the whole situation. But for my money these issues were minor niggles in a film that was very involving, very enjoyable and very cool! The plot may be the stable stuff of the genre but the writing spices it up no end. The characters talk and carry themselves the way we all wise we could – the dialogue is never really trite (well, the 'she's my daughter' scene was a bit corny) and is actually enjoyable to listen to as opposed to many thrillers where dialogue is often a way of explaining the action scenes! Mamet scores a double double in my eyes because I also thought his direction was unobtrusive but also very stylish and interesting. He doesn't use darkness much but he uses a sort of half-light very well to match the material, at times gradually moving his characters from light to dark as they talk. More surprising than the impressive stylistic touches was perhaps the moments of action, which Mamet delivers with real tension and pace – not bad for a playwright! Given the dialogue to work with, the majority of the cast do very well. I'm not a big fan of Val Kilmer and this film will hardly draw the crowds based on his name alone but he is actually pretty good here. Starting the film with a cold emotional delivery, Kilmer is very much the professional he needs to be and is unrelentingly tough and cool until the film demands he struggle with his direction and even then he manages it even if he is less convincing than the first half. Luke appears to have been given a normal rookie role but he is still good and makes a significant impact. Texada is barely used considering her role in the story and she matches the majority of the support cast in the way that she delivers the dialogue well but has little character behind the sharp words. The support are therefore a mixed bunch – few have any real characters of substance but generally people like Macy, O'Neil and others all spouting tough dialogue is still worth seeing. Overall this is not the best thriller ever but it is a very enjoyable one that greatly benefited from Mamet's positive work as both writer and director. The plot may be full of gaps but generally it keeps a great pace from the start to the sombre and satisfying finale. The cast all get plenty of good dialogue to deliver, even if it is only really Kilmer and Luke who get the chance to deliver a performance and generally the film is a very enjoyable, if unsurprising thriller.