re:mote voices

Title: Spartan
Cast: Val Kilmer, Derek Luke, Kristen Bell, William H. Macy, Tia Texada
Director: David Mamet

David Mamet, one of America’s top, and no doubt under rated, writer/directors returns with the sparsely written Spartan. The very brevity of the script has led to some criticism, Mamet being known for his dialogue to some degree. But given the charged and raw drive that brings Spartan to life, then it is only proper that the narrative be less wordy than his previous efforts.

Val Kilmer, fresh from his success with the recent film Wonderland, takes the lead role in Spartan. One of the secret services top agents, we are introduced to him as he returns from a training session with new recruits. Instead of returning to his off-time/cover life as planned, he is sucked into a situation which is going off. Laura Newton is the president’s daughter, the darling of the American media, and crucial in this election year. But she has been snatched, and the secret service have stepped into high gear – it is essential that she is recovered before she misses any classes and her absence is noted.

This makes for a situation where politeness and rights go out the window, this isn’t the kind of security detail which you usually see. The agents, with Kilmer’s character taking the frontline, go in hard. Stepping through her final steps, they unravel a burgeoning sense of rebellion, slack security, fights with her boyfriend. To get from clue to clue people are hurt, demands for lawyers are flaunted before limbs are broken. In this environment language comes from actions, and the narrative is taut, the film not wasting times with an excessive lead in or title sequence.

Of course being Mamet, Spartan is not as straightforward as finding a missing girl. As such the film is in two halves, with the first part building up a powder keg, before the second changes the rules, and pulls the carpet out from under the characters.

Coming out in the UK a week before the Bourne Supremacy, the second of adaptations from Ludlum’s novels, Spartan should appeal to the same kind of crowd. The covert, the cloak and dagger, the action, but while the Bourne films rely more on big effects and high tech, Spartan is a lot darker, and quite possibly more real, definitely more compelling.