David Mamet’s “Spartan” (2004) opens with one in every of my favourite traces of film dialogue.
We start within the woods, watching women and men run by way of a rigorous coaching course by which they’re being pursued. At one level, a cadet stops to catch her breath and doesn’t see a determine watching her, sitting close by, observing her actions.
He’s recognized solely as Scott, the Grasp Gunner, and performed by Val Kilmer. Scott asks her, “You had your complete life to coach for this second. Why aren’t you prepared?”
The film is actually off and operating and doesn’t decelerate for a second.
Scott is whisked away from the coaching session and ordered to participate in a rescue mission. It appears a younger girl named Laura Newton (Kristen Bell) has been kidnapped. We don’t know instantly who she is or why she’s necessary, solely that there’s a two-day window, tops, to avoid wasting her and “there’s simply the mission.”
After getting his orders and the one intel accessible, Scott takes off and intercepts the final individual the woman interacted with. From there, it’s a sequence of interrogations, chases, false begins and shock reveals.
Mamet’s dialog is no-nonsense and direct, with character revelations popping out in uncommon, unguarded moments. The credentials and backstory of those characters are on a need-to-know foundation – the momentum is at a dash from the beginning and we’re alongside for the experience.
Coming just a few years into the run of “24” (which started in 2001, aired for 9 seasons, then got here again by way of TV motion pictures and added seasons), Mamet is as soon as once more giving us a dialog-driven piece by which the interior lives of the characters are revealed regularly, if in any respect.
These are individuals outlined by their actions and skill to hold out orders.
Occupation apart, Kilmer isn’t actually taking part in a personality all that completely different from the type of sink-or-swim company figures in Mamet’s “Glengarry Glen Ross (which Mamet wrote however James Foley directed as a movie in 1992) or “The Spanish Prisoner” (1997). As with Mamet’s “Heist” (2001), this could possibly be reworked right into a theater piece however actually wouldn’t work as properly introduced as a play with out main structural alterations.
Like Mamet’s “Redbelt” (2005), “Spartan” is pushed by a central determine who’s a disciplined, extremely educated warrior, able to violence, whose focus and unwavering motivation carries him. Mamet excels at creating this sort of fascinating, unknowable character – his screenplay for “Ronin” (1998) was one other instance of this sort of high-minded crime caper.
Maybe Mamet’s legacy is “Glengarry Glen Ross” and “Oleanna,” however his stage and movie work show a willingness to take probabilities with style conventions, probably alienate audiences from the protagonist and creating ethical and mental puzzles that enable for way over merely good versus evil.
Kilmer’s character, just like the actor himself, is an excellent, intuitive performer. Watch how rapidly Scott improvises throughout an interrogation. Kilmer did this back-to-back with Shane Black’s “Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang” (2005), one other offbeat however good alternative that offers additional proof that he’s one in every of our greatest, most attention-grabbing movie actors.
Kilmer’s efficiency right here has a spotlight and gravity that charges alongside his finest work.
Clark Gregg, William H. Macy and Derek Luke excel in supporting turns, although it’s Bell who is particularly affecting. Mark Isham’s nice, easy rating by no means overshadows Mamet’s maintain on the story.
“Spartan,” in a phrase, is terrific. So why haven’t most individuals even heard of it?
When it was launched in theaters 20 years in the past, it barely registered in theaters, regardless of largely constructive opinions. A significant offender of its meager imprint in theaters was that the depleted Franchise Photos (smarting from the flops of “Battlefield: Earth,” “Get Carter” and “Pushed,” to call just a few) couldn’t afford to offer it a lot of a push.
Like Sean Penn’s “The Pledge” (2001), Mamet’s movie was Oscar caliber however launched on the incorrect time and didn’t final in theaters.
In case you’re a fan of Kilmer’s and benefit from the problem of Mamet’s brain-teasing psychological dramas, then “Spartan” is a serious discovery.