Spartan (2004, USA)

It doesn’t bode well for a movie when the reviewer can’t remember at 5P.M. what it was she watched at noon. To Spartan’s credit, perhaps I was just exceedingly hung over.

In any case, I picked up Spartan after reading a review of The Sentinel, which referred to the 2004 David Mamet film as an overlooked thriller about the Secret Service. More straightforward than many of Mamet’s other dramas/thrillers, such as The Spanish Prisoner and Heist, Spartan follows the activities of unnamed black ops soldier Val Kilmer as he fights many foes (both foreign and familiar) in order to rescue the daughter of the President of the United States. All of these details are actually quite vague, as Mamet avoids telling the audience exactly who the kidnapee is, or indeed what branch of the U.S. government Kilmer’s character really works for. His aim is to strip the extraneous exposition off of an otherwise economical thriller in order to focus tightly on the central character – unfortunately, the film flirts with pretentiousness by making everything needlessly opaque.

Indeed, Spartan turns out to be more of a character study than a drama or a thriller, as Mamet is more interested in his central character’s struggles against his nature as a soldier – told what do to at all times, and when to do it – in favor of the fulfillment of his duty. Kilmer’s flatness as an actor is put to good use here, going well with both Mamet’s stylized dialogue and the character’s background as a lifelong military man.

Though several of Mamet’s stock players show up, including Clark Gregg and William H. Macy, I was quite (selfishly) delighted to finally see a Mamet film that does not feature his horrifically mannered wife, Rebecca Pidgeon. Now, if only that film had been State and Main.