f13.net forums - Not Quite Greek: DVD Review of Spartan

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April 27, 2024, 06:22:15 AM

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I am not familiar with the work of David Mamet, other than some offhanded commentary from a former coworker and an ill-advised attempt to sit through a showing of Heist on a free movie channel weekend. He is known as being a well-respected playwright, and a hit-or-miss film director and screenwriter. My review and comments on his work are based on a very limited sense of his style from the aforementioned sources of information. In short, I could very well be talking out of my ass when I talk about Mamet, but I take comfort in knowing that my criticisms of Spartan are based on a thorough viewing of the movie.

Spartan is a film that received way too little attention when it hit the theaters sometime this past spring. My interest in the picture was piqued after I watched the trailer online, but its run at the theater was a disaster, as evidenced by its almost immediate release on DVD last month. It bombed, yet after watching it, I can say that those few who did see it in the theater were extremely lucky. It's a brilliantly shot film, with a taut surprising story and very few flaws.

The story follows a hard-nosed Secret Service agent played by Val Kilmer. The stoicism of his performance is letter perfect. He begins the movie observing Marine recruits for some form of Secret Service duty, and in this we see his absolute ruthless efficiency. He tells a faltering recruit that "If your mission is to quit, this is the time to do it," all while the recruit is puking his guts up from a rigorous cross-country chase. When that same recruit tries to tell him his name and something about himself, Kilmer's character cuts him off. The last part of the training process is a barehanded 'last man standing wins the job' fistfight between the two best recruits, which Kilmer watches dispassionately. And when the main case of the story comes up, he is brought in as the heavy. As is remarked later in the movie, Kilmer's character is a shooter, not a planner. He's the guy you call in when you need someone with no compunctions to do whatever the job takes, without hesitation, without question. He's Jack Bauer without the complications and the seemingly-superhuman abilities.

Kilmer is brought in to find and rescue a girl who was kidnapped from under the protection of the Secret Service. Who the girl is is never quite explained by the story, though it becomes obvious through reading the DVD jacket as well as the importance of the girl that she is the president's daughter. This leads to one of the main criticisms I have of the movie, and by extension, of Mamet's work as I've seen it.

I've heard it said that Mamet believes as a director in making the perfect visual film, one which should not require dialogue or exposition in order to convey its meaning and narrative. He feels that any movie which relies on dialogue and exposition, as all movies do, are naturally flawed art, and as such he seems to endeavor to tell as much story as possible with at little exposition and dialogue as he can get away with. Less is more might work for paintings and the set designs of plays, but in movies, that isn't always the case. And in Spartan, Mamet tries to make do with as spartan a screenplay as he can.

Instead of telling us that Kilmer's character is a Secret Service agent, he focuses a shot on Kilmer holding a case folder with the words "U.S. Secret Service" printed on it in bold, stenciled letters. It is never stated that the kidnap victim is the president's daughter, ever. She is repeatedly called "The Girl" in conversations and interrogations. As in the aforementioned movie Heist, all the characters seem to talk at or around each other as opposed to with each other. And whereas in Heist, this mode of conversation was grating, irritating and muddled the story to the point of annoyance, the technique is only a trifle irritating in Spartan. Most of the time, it fits the tone and setting of the story, as well as the emotional depth of the characters. Kilmer's agent in particular deliberately distances himself from the work he does, deliberately ignoring any line of questions which might lead him to have to care about the subject of his search. He likes the "deal" he gets from his job; he is allowed to act without thought to the consequences or morality of his actions, and as a result he maintains a dispassionate detachment from all the horror and violence he lives with and perpetrates.

Under a less capable director or with a less talented actor, the audience would likely feel a distance from the characters and the story. But in Spartan, despite the detachment of all the characters from the events surrounding them, the audience is interested. Kilmer's brash, matter-of-factness works for the character, and draws the audience in. The direction is never heavy-handed, and moves the story along at a good pace, never letting the audience grow bored. It's a longish movie by most theater standards, at around 1 hour 47 minutes, but it never feels it. No scene feels out of place or stretched beyond its limit, and no shot is wasted. When the "twist" in the story's plot happens midway in, the story becomes even more compelling.

Spartan isn't quite a perfect film, but its only missteps come from a conscious decision by the writer/director to minimize exposition. Those missteps are easily forgiven, because most of the important points that would have otherwise been explained in conversations, voiceovers or captions, are deftly inserted in the form of small yet prominent visual cues. Spartan may not be a must-see film in the thriller genre, but its worth at least a DVD rental. The special features on the DVD are as spartan as the title, consisting of a single commentary track by Val Kilmer and the movies theatrical trailer.

I would rate this film a 4 out of 5 stars, if I used such a system.

Sounds like it might be worth a look on On Demand. Thanks for the review!

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You haven't seen Glengarry Glen Ross? You MUST see it as soon as humanly possible. It is basically a filmed play, but the dialogue and the outstanding cast (Lemmon, Harris, Pacino, Spacey, even Baldwin is good) make it well worth watching. It is one of those movies that I catch channel surfing and stop to watch it, oblivious to whatever I was watching before.

GlenGary Glen Ross is indeed spectacular. I was very happy when they released it on dvd. Unfortunately the rest of his stuff is shite. This has kept me from purchasing Spartan, though it may end up as a rental one day.

Nice review.

Glengarry Glen Ross was already mentioned, but American Buffalo is another good play-turned-to-film. Probably not as good a film as Glen, but perhaps the best thing he's ever written.

Personally, I think his best film would be House of Games. The Verdict is one of his better ones too, even if he only wrote it. He didn't direct it (the same goes with Glen).

"Goldberg Street": A collection of his short plays and monologues. Light reading, but really worth checking out.

I enjoyed almost everything about spartan except the five minutes at the end in the hanger and that was still good jus tnot up to the quality of the rest of the movie.

Everything else had a certain tone and pacing and that hanger scene was just out of place. It I were a betting man I would bet it was either added at the last minute due to pressure from higher up or at the very least extensive changes were made to it.

Watched this last night. Was an ok movie. I didnt really like Vals acting job. Felt like he was trying to hard to be ridged, and it just came off stiff.

I would give it about a 7.3/10.

On a side note, the part in the whore house, when the old lady is yelling for her lawyer, and Val goes in to pressure the young whore. That is a girl I used to be great friends with (the one playing "Young Whore") he name is Margot Farley. While I was watching it, was like "Hey, is that... is that Margot?" and sure enough, in the credits, it was.

Small world.

I looked in the credits for that actresses name, because she was semi-hot. She also looked familiar, as if I'd seen her in something else, but it wasn't the actress I thought it was.

Quote from: Morphiend

Watched this last night. Was an ok movie. I didnt really like Vals acting job. Felt like he was trying to hard to be ridged, and it just came off stiff.

I see what you're saying, but partly the reason for that might be that Mamet always calls on actors to "just read the lines", to not hide what they're feeling at the moment (where the stiffness comes in), and not try to be their character. That there is no "character", just words on a page and suspension of belief on the part of the audience.

For an actor like Kilmer, who's always full of characterizations, it might come off like he's stiff at times (since there isn't a character to hide under). I thought he was great though. It's not easy to just be yourself, especially as an actor. But take a look at W.H Macy and Joe Mantegna -- They've been with Mamet since his stage days, and have been doing that very thing for years...Just saying their lines. They've perfected it (but it'd be hard to watch them do what Kilmer does too).

I saw it last night while loaded on Long Islands. It was a good movie by drunken standards but hard to keep up with in that state. If I watched it again sober I'd notice a lot more I'm sure. I liked the opening scenes with the military and Val in the training camp. I loved the scene where he fakes the robbery in the convenience store. The hangar caught me off guard as well with the pacing. The movie felt very quick paced and on-edge, and everytime somebody walked out into the open I was expecting them to take one to the head. Often they did and I would still jump.

Overall, I'd say 4 out of 5 for a quality flick.

Saw it last weekend and liked it. No real complaints. Don't feel like nitpicking with the ending. It didn't really jar me at the time. Looking back it may have been out of place but didn't affect my enjoyment.