Review of Spartan (2004) by Claes L — 18 May 2004

David Mamet is one of my favorite writer/directors, and his latest film, [b]Spartan[/b], is another fine entry into his filmography. it's far from a perfect film, it's got a handful of flaws but it's nevertheless a very fine thriller and one of the better ones i've seen in quite some time.

the premise is relatively simple. a girl has been taken, and a military man named Scott (played by Val Kilmer) is assigned to retrieve her. the girl is not just any girl though, she's the daughter of the US president.. it's not all straight forward though, and the film offers up quite a few twists and turns.. it's probably not twists that'll shock and surprise you, but it's a nice ride of a movie and whatever turns and twists it takes, they don't feel like they are taken out of thin air and have no logic to them.

it's primary strength is Mamet's writing skill and ability to handle the film. it's not packed with the usual razzle-dazzle dialogue Mamet usually fills his films with, but the film really doesn't need it and it shouldn't have it either. this doesn't mean the dialogue is dull though, and as again Mamet shows why he's probably one of the finest writers out there.. not many can write dialogue the way he can. the cast do a fine job too, although some of them seem a bit miscast. Val Kilmer in the lead is not though, and as always he inhabits his character perfectly. it's not a flashy performance or a character though so in that sense it's Kilmer Lite but the man is always very watchable. the one who impressed me the most though was a young, unknown actress by the name of Kristen Bell, who plays the kidnapped girl. she doesn't have a lot of dialogue or time in the film but she was absolutely fantastic. it's really too bad she didn't have more screentime.. but i'll most certainly remember her name, and hope she gets a big break because she deserves it if this performance is a good indicator of her talent. the rest of the cast do well with their parts, but I couldn't help but feel that Derek Luke, Tia Texada (both playing young soldiers) and William H. Macy (playing some security service boss type of guy) were a bit wrong for their parts. neither of them embarrass themselves, but I didn't completely buy them in their roles either the way I did for Kilmer, Bell and the others.

as for flaws, the film is tight and absolutely right until the end.. the finale isn't awful, but it felt a bit simple and not too exciting compared to the rest of the film.. a bit anti-climactic in a way. in this very sequence there's a Swedish news team involved too, which was really odd since the bureau they were from, aptly titled "Swedish News Bureau" (but in Swedish), doesn't exist at all and seemed very generic a name.. thankfully they spelled it right though, and the female reporter even spoke actual Swedish, but of course they had a young blonde blue-eyed Swedish woman playing the reporter.. which doesn't help against the stereotype image. this isn't something that's likely to bother anyone else, but it was just weird for me and kinda took me out of the film.

the anti-climactic finale, with the Swedish news crew thing added into it, and the somewhat miscast actors mentioned earlier drops the grade down a notch, but otherwise [b]Spartan[/b] is a very fine film and definitely worth checking out. it's well-written, well-acted and just robustly crafted.. plus it's very entertaining and engaging. considering it made like $5 at the box office, far too many missed it in theaters so when it's out on DVD, give this one a spin. this [b]Spartan[/b] deserves a far better fate than it got.

a solid **** stars out of five.