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

I started watching this without knowing any of the credits. As the dialog and the anfractuous plot developed I found myself thinking, "Oh, no!" It was all so MAMET-LIKE. I assumed that David Mamet had had sufficient critical successes and box office winners that other writers and directors were shamelessly ripping him off and that he would soon be nudged sideways into the cliché-laden zone now occupied by people like Hitchcock and Quentin Tarrantino. Istantly recognizable Schtick.

In a few years our ability to suspend disbelief would be lambasted with increasingly involved special ops within cons within special ops, and we would be listening in every movie to dialog like this: Character One: "I'm going to get you out of here." Character Two: "You're going to get me out of here?" Character One: "I'm going to get you out of here." Or: Character One: "You want a cigarette now?" Character Two: "Can you produce one?" What a relief to find that David Mamet was behind this whole thing -- writer, producer, director, bricoleur. It may be Schtick, but it's Mamet's own.

The plot really IS pretty complicated and sometimes a little hard to follow because of the elliptic dialog. At the same time we can usually judge from the circumstances what it means when somebody says, "You've got to bring me into the tall corn." It's a little harder to guess what a transponder looks like but we can do that too. It's very hard, though, to understand how even the world's finest shot can with one bullet blow away a moving target on land when the shooter himself is on a bobbing fishing boat half a mile out on the misty ocean -- but let that (and several other implausibilities) glide.

It's an interesting movie, easy to get swept up in. Val Kilmer is beyond the point of prettiness, happily, and is bulkier and more believable. (From some angles he reminds one of Mickey Rooney.) His acting may not shoot out the lights but the role doesn't call for fireworks, just a nicely balanced combination of determination and creativity.

I kind of like Bill Macy better in parts that are at least slightly comic. Those goofy features, I suppose. The rest of the performers are at least adequate.

The movie was released in 2004 and probably shot in 2003. The heavies -- aside from those in Washington -- are Arabs, as far as we know. I mean, when you think of Dubai, you think Arabs, no? Although I doubt that most Americans could go to a map and put their finger on Dubai instead of, say, Qattar, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, or Yemen -- or Jordan, Syria, or Saudi Arabia for that matter. A survey of high school students a few years ago revealed that the majority thought that Toronto was in Italy. I only mention this because I wonder if this film establishes precedent. Are we to have nothing but Arab terrorists and white slave traders in our future? Is this a pointed finger that I see before me? Catch it if you can. Plenty of action -- but it's used as dramatic punctuation rather than a Ding an Sich. It's there for a reason. And the narrative will keep you interested.

Robert Scott (Val Kilmer) is a military consultant working on Delta Force recruits. Curtis (Derek Luke) is one of those recruits. The president's daughter Laura Newton (Kristen Bell) goes missing and Robert is brought in. He's given 2 days before news spreads to the media. He brings Curtis in to assist him and tracks her to an international sex ring. It's a murky world of secret and mystery.

David Mamet tries his hand on a crime mystery action thriller. I rarely ask for more introduction but I want to know who Robert Scott was before his mysterious present day job. The murky start causes confusion about the limits of his powers or simply what is his job. The suspense is pretty good as the plot keeps it moving like a machine. Val Kilmer is functional but he lacks the star power. The tension is building up to an exciting operation in Dubai but a turn in the middle stalls the movie. Instead of ramping up the tension, the movie chugs along and chugs along. I don't understand why he doesn't go to the higher ups with the information. Some of the plot points leave me a bit puzzled. I think a more accomplished action director would have been better. Also the ending is a mess of twists that are highly questionable.