Spartan (2004)
Getting the Girl:
David Mamet’s Sleek, Bleak Paranoid Thriller Is Not To Be Missed
Boston, nighttime. A girl has disappeared.
Laura Newton was under surveillance from a security detail. This afternoon she had her red hair cut short and dyed blonde. Now, she is gone.
Police, secret service agents—even the military are searching for her.
Master Gunner Scott (Val Kilmer) arrives by helicopter. He helps interrogate a member of the security detail who was posted to watch her in Harvard Yard. Scott calls the man a liar, hits him in the face, and knocks him to the floor. Scott is dragged away. But the man is broken—he was with his girlfriend—and, when he’s left alone, he commits suicide.
Burch (Ed O’Neill) takes charge of the investigation. His retinue includes the mysterious Stoddard (William H. Macy). The searchers have two days before the girl will be missed at her Monday classes and “the press wakes up.”
Scott finds the girl’s boyfriend, and learns the couple argued earlier and that she may have gone to the Back Light, a club behind the Fenway.
Scott and recent trainee Curtis (Derek Luke) visit the club. The manager won’t give any information. Scott and Curtis waylay him outside. Scott throws him against the wall. The manager gasps that his arm is broken. Scott brings the man’s arm down on top of a dumpster—“Now its broken,” says Scott.
Scott tells Curtis, “Take your knife out.” Curtis does. “Take his eye out,” says Scott.” The manager tells them the girl was taken to an escort agency.
A girl at the agency tells them Laura was there, “She was sick. She was not very well. They took her.”
“They?”
She has been taken by white slavers. Amazed at the intensity of the investigators, the woman running the escort service says, “I don’t understand. She’s just some girl.”
But, Laura Newton is not just some girl. And the investigators are desperate.
The trail leads Scott and Curtis to a beach house. Scott surveys the house with a night vision device. Then he goes in—telling Curtis what to do when someone comes out, “If it ain’t me or her, kill it.”
Writer/director David Mamet propels his new thriller Spartan at break neck speed. The search for Laura Newton widens. The possible explanations for her disappearance spiral out ever further. And some kind of cover up may be occurring.
The House of Games (1987) and The Spanish Prisoner (1997) revealed Mamet’s fascination for con games. Homicide (1991) and Heist (2001) were attempts—the first successful, the second less so—to wrap a police procedural and a heist story around Mamet’s elaborate confidence tricks.
In Spartan, the merging of one of Mamet’s brilliant puzzle plots and the hunt for a missing girl is seamless.
Kilmer gives his best performance in years, as the brutal, efficient Scott who tells Burch, “I am here to get the girl. And there is nothing I will not do to get the girl back.”
There are fine performances by O’Neill as the relentless Burch; by long-time Mamet-collaborator Macy; by Luke and Tia Texada, as two of Scott’s admiring trainees; by Kristen Bell as the missing, and lost, Laura; by Linda Kimborough as an agent who turns out to be more than that; and by Kick Gurry, who helps Scott when the trail leads to Dubai, and asks him, “You wanna gossip, or you wanna shoot somebody.”
Spartan is a splendid movie—shot in steely blues and grays. It was not given a wide release, but it is worth seeking out. Spartan is a sleek, bleak paranoid thriller that shouldn’t be missed.
—John Bloomfield (22 March, 2004)
David Mamet’s Sleek, Bleak Paranoid Thriller Is Not To Be Missed
Boston, nighttime. A girl has disappeared.
Laura Newton was under surveillance from a security detail. This afternoon she had her red hair cut short and dyed blonde. Now, she is gone.
Police, secret service agents—even the military are searching for her.
Master Gunner Scott (Val Kilmer) arrives by helicopter. He helps interrogate a member of the security detail who was posted to watch her in Harvard Yard. Scott calls the man a liar, hits him in the face, and knocks him to the floor. Scott is dragged away. But the man is broken—he was with his girlfriend—and, when he’s left alone, he commits suicide.
Burch (Ed O’Neill) takes charge of the investigation. His retinue includes the mysterious Stoddard (William H. Macy). The searchers have two days before the girl will be missed at her Monday classes and “the press wakes up.”
Scott finds the girl’s boyfriend, and learns the couple argued earlier and that she may have gone to the Back Light, a club behind the Fenway.
Scott and recent trainee Curtis (Derek Luke) visit the club. The manager won’t give any information. Scott and Curtis waylay him outside. Scott throws him against the wall. The manager gasps that his arm is broken. Scott brings the man’s arm down on top of a dumpster—“Now its broken,” says Scott.
Scott tells Curtis, “Take your knife out.” Curtis does. “Take his eye out,” says Scott.” The manager tells them the girl was taken to an escort agency.
A girl at the agency tells them Laura was there, “She was sick. She was not very well. They took her.”
“They?”
She has been taken by white slavers. Amazed at the intensity of the investigators, the woman running the escort service says, “I don’t understand. She’s just some girl.”
But, Laura Newton is not just some girl. And the investigators are desperate.
The trail leads Scott and Curtis to a beach house. Scott surveys the house with a night vision device. Then he goes in—telling Curtis what to do when someone comes out, “If it ain’t me or her, kill it.”
Writer/director David Mamet propels his new thriller Spartan at break neck speed. The search for Laura Newton widens. The possible explanations for her disappearance spiral out ever further. And some kind of cover up may be occurring.
The House of Games (1987) and The Spanish Prisoner (1997) revealed Mamet’s fascination for con games. Homicide (1991) and Heist (2001) were attempts—the first successful, the second less so—to wrap a police procedural and a heist story around Mamet’s elaborate confidence tricks.
In Spartan, the merging of one of Mamet’s brilliant puzzle plots and the hunt for a missing girl is seamless.
Kilmer gives his best performance in years, as the brutal, efficient Scott who tells Burch, “I am here to get the girl. And there is nothing I will not do to get the girl back.”
There are fine performances by O’Neill as the relentless Burch; by long-time Mamet-collaborator Macy; by Luke and Tia Texada, as two of Scott’s admiring trainees; by Kristen Bell as the missing, and lost, Laura; by Linda Kimborough as an agent who turns out to be more than that; and by Kick Gurry, who helps Scott when the trail leads to Dubai, and asks him, “You wanna gossip, or you wanna shoot somebody.”
Spartan is a splendid movie—shot in steely blues and grays. It was not given a wide release, but it is worth seeking out. Spartan is a sleek, bleak paranoid thriller that shouldn’t be missed.
—John Bloomfield (22 March, 2004)
posted by John Bloomfield at 9:30 AM
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