Review: Spartan (2004)
Steve Rhodes
A film review by Steve Rhodes
Copyright 2004 Steve Rhodes
RATING (0 TO ****): *** 1/2
SPARTAN is a thinking man's thriller by writer and director David Mamet, who
has an impressive body of work from his brilliant first films, HOUSE OF GAMES
and THINGS CHANGE, to his equally satisfying more recent movies, THE SPANISH
PRISONER, THE WINSLOW BOY and STATE AND MAIN. His latest, SPARTAN, is an
edge-of-your-seat mystery about the kidnapping of a college student, Laura
Newton (Kristen Bell), who happens to be the daughter of a president who can't
keep his pants on. Her abductors, however, don't realize whom they've got.
They think she is just another pretty, petite blonde, who is just the type they
need for their foreign prostitution ring.
The script is heavy on the plotting and scheming, but there's plenty of action
too. The story is one in which little is what it seems and in which no one is
ever safe. In less capable hands than Mamet's, suspending disbelief could have
been hard at times, but, with him in charge, it's easy to go with the flow and
buy the story lock, stock and barrel.
Val Kilmer, the star of SPARTAN, seems to be making a sea change in his career.
After years of blowing his talent in needless overacting in such dogs as THE
SAINT and THE SALTON SEA, Kilmer delivered a great performance last year in
WONDERLAND and does so again in SPARTAN. As Robert Scott, a special ops
trainer and expert, Kilmer delivers a remarkably restrained performance that
perfectly captures a man on a mission who is willing to "go off the meter" to
bring back the girl.
The Secret Service and their fellow agencies have got just two days before
Laura is supposed to go to her Monday classes and hence only two "before the
press wakes up" and starts a "feeding frenzy." Since a professor might somehow
be involved, an order is given to, "Wake him up! Shake him up!"
The punchy dialog alone -- "You want to gossip, or do you want to shoot
someone?" -- is worth the price of admission. One of the best of the many tart
exchanges occurs between Robert and Curtis (Derek Luke), one of the Rangers
whom Robert has been training. You'll remember Luke from his blazing first
performance in the title role of Denzel Washington's ANTWONE FISHER. Showing
Curtis how to search his surroundings for clues, Robert tells him, "In a city,
always reflection. In the woods, sound." "What about the desert?" his pupil
asks. "You don't want to go to the desert," Robert replies. Hmm, I wonder
where this white slavery ring might operate.
As Mamet peels away more and more of his onion of a plot, you may be looking at
your watch, but not for the reason that usually causes you to get acquainted
with your timepiece in the dark of a theater. You may be thinking, as I did,
that you don't want this to end. If Mamet ever wants to turn SPARTAN into a
miniseries, I'm there. And, if the average screenwriter had just one tenth of
Mamet's talent, movies would be a whole lot more fun.
SPARTAN runs 1:46. It is rated R for "violence and language" and would be
acceptable for teenagers.
The film opens nationwide in the United States on Friday, March 12, 2004. In
the Silicon Valley, it will be showing at the AMC theaters, the Century
theaters and the Camera Cinemas.
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Susan Granger
Writer/director David Mamet's new political thriller starts off in high
gear with Val Kilmer as Robert Scott, a brutal special-ops Secret Service
officer who's training new recruits. Scott's top rookie (Derek Luke) becomes
his protégé when they're assigned to find Laura Newton (Kristen Bell), the
rebellious daughter of a high-ranking government official, presumed to be the
President of the United States. Missing from her dorm at Harvard, Laura was
last seen at a sleazy Boston bar, her signature red hair bobbed and bleached
blonde. The Secret Service has only the weekend to track her down because, if
she misses Monday's classes, the press will grab the story.
Complicating the chase is a timely sex trafficking subplot involving
elusive agents shipping blonde American girls off to a halfway house in Dubai
and then on to Yemen. Could one of them have, unknowingly, grabbed Laura Newton
and put her in the pipeline? Is she leaving cryptic clues behind? And what's
the clandestine agenda of an Executive operative (William H. Macy) who
insinuates himself into the abduction rescue? Could there be a corrupt
political conspiracy that will prevent the extraction of the hostage from
Dubai?
There are far more questions than answers. David Mamet's writing and
direction are calculatingly convoluted and deliberately complicated, unlike his
more accessible "Heist." Juan Ruiz Anchia's photography, Barbara Tulliver's
editing and Gemma Jackson's production design reveal little. So on the Granger
Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, "Spartan" is a far-fetched, frustrating 4. "It's all in
the mind," insists Scott. "That's where the battle's won." But when the
suspenseful plot is ultimately unraveled, it turns out to be a cynical
cinematic riddle that still makes little sense.
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Harvey S. Karten
Reviewed by: Harvey S. Karten
Grade: B-
Warner Bros./Franchise Pictures
Directed by: David Mamet
Written by: David Mamet
Cast: Val Kilmer, Kristen Bell, Derek Luke, William H. Macy
Screened at: Warner Bros., NYC, 5/8/04
In Jamie Uys's offbeat comedy "The Gods Must be Crazy," a
South African Bushman, having seen his first blonde, states that
he never before saw a woman so ugly. "Everyone likes
blondes: that's why we're here," barks a high-level operative in
the United States Government, without realizing the opposing
view of his fellow human being out in the bush. If we accept the
premise of "Spartan," yet another thriller from the pen of director
David Mamet, the universal affection for blondes fuels a white-
slavery ring that kidnaps young, fair-skinned women, preferably
of college age, and hustles them off to Dubai where they
apparently serve at the pleasure of the sheiks. It's up to the
special operatives of the U.S. the CIA, the FBI, the Secret
Service and various and sundry top secret organizations to
break up the ring and get back the blondes, or what's a red-
blooded fraternity boy gonna do?
David Mamet, whose best screenplays include a vivid
reshaping of Chekhov's "Uncle Vanya," a comic "Wag the Dog"
(inspired by the alleged technique of high government officials
to distract the public from economic woes by inciting foreign
wars), and "Glengarry Glen Ross," a masterwork about the
wheeling and dealing that form the basis of capitalism, is not
exactly running on automatic pilot this time around. In fact once
you get into the swing and begin to comprehend what's going
on, you can become absorbed trying to guess the allegiance of
the men and women in counter-espionage activities. Of course
since the CIA is involved, we've come to expect some nasty
goings-on involving rogue agents and missions that are kept
secret to avoid embarrassing the administration currently in
power.
The plot revolves around a Harvard student, Laura Newton
(Kristen Bell), who has been kidnaped by a white-slave ring, a
practice which gets the attention of the White House because
(Mamet implies) Laura is the president's daughter. How could
a girl who is tailed every moment of her life by a team of secret
service agents possibly fall into the hands of these slavers,
particularly since they'd never dream of calling attention to
themselves by taking the chief executive's daughter? That and
other questions become clearer once Mamet gets us past an
opening scene that could have come out of a training camp
dreamed up by Oliver Stone involving a hierarchy of
commandoes including mid-level Robert Scott (Val Kilmer) who
barks orders to a naive recruit, Curtis (Derek Luke) and is in turn
bossed around by a top dog in the department (Ed O'Neill).
Scott has been thoroughly indoctrinated with the mission of his
department the sort who'd take a bullet to save the president
and act on the orders of his superior without question. Assigned
to recover the girl from her captors, involving not only a trip to
Dubai where the Secret Service enjoys special storage
privileges at the airport, but also a series of raids on local
houses that serve as a kind of underground railroad for the illicit
commerce.
Though the action is taut, the dialogue coming across as the
usual Mamet-speak of staccato rhythms and repetitions, the
writer-director takes too much time looking into the training
program before getting into the real story. Nor is the action in
Dubai, which involves particular input from Agent Stoddard
(William H. Macy), convincing. As complications pile up during
the bracing conclusion of the tale, we wonder exactly how Scott
expects to transport the unhappy young woman back to the
States, particularly since the Harvard student is not too thrilled
about going home.
Val Kilmer, the perfect robo-cop who "finds himself" when he
disobeys an order for the first time, could easily replace the
California governor in future actioners as long as that state's
chief exec is busy dealing with gay marriages rather than rival
cyborgs. As for where the title of this movie comes from when
it's not mentioned anywhere in the story, well, that's Greek to
me.
Rated PG-13. 106 minutes.(c) 2004 by Harvey Karten at
Harvey...@cs.com
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