Review of Spartan (2004) by Neil O — 14 May 2005

Not seeing movies as frequently as I used to since other things are occupying my time. From what I have seen "Spartan" is top-flight David Mamet with his usual mid-film twist and nice work from Val Kilmer and "Revengers Tragedy" continues the now-common practice of setting an Elizabethan tragedy in some dystopian future but at least this time it was an unfamiliar play.

"Mayor Of The Sunset Strip" was intersting if a little manipulative chroncling the life and career of LA rock scene king Rodney Bingleheimer. It was good on the musical side of his story but it got a bit manipulative when showing his relationship with his family and a female friend he called the "love of his life" but who considered herself just a friend. Another odd thing was that the film suggested that Rodney's day as a DJ and musical kingmaker was past since kids were into techno and rap now instead of the straight up trock and roll he loves. I don't know when this film was made but of course thanks to the likes of The Strokes, The Killers and Franz Ferdinand among others, rock is back in the saddle among the hipsters so Rodney is today as relevant as ever.

And then there's "The Killing Club". How often do you see a movie fall apart right in front of your eyes? It starts promisingly as a dark comedy about three women who accidently get into the business of killing obnoxious men, but it quickly crashes and burns. Despite the rising body count around these ladies, only one policeman appears in only one scene, a lot of scenes are taken up with tedious scenes of bickering and to top it all, it ends with the one determined "killer" played by Traci Lords chasing her chickened-out partners through a construction site. They get away and that's it! She seemingly never tries to contact or attack the women again even though she knows where they both live. The next scene is six months later. One of the other women has happily written a book about the entire experience (!?) and Lords is lastly shown taking a taxi ride somewhere in Arizona. The thought of any character actually being punished for the three deaths caused during the movie, as you would see in any other picture, doesn't seem to have occured to anyone this time.