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SPARTAN
7/10
USA
2004 (copyright-date 2003) : David MAMET : 107 mins
After two
comic mis-steps, Mamet finds his feet with a gripping, twisty thriller
where his trademark stylised dialogue fits just fine. Perhaps his best
picture to date... so why no proper release?
A film
the studio wanted to get off its schedule as quickly as possible, Spartan
was horribly mis-marketed by Warner Brothers from day one. The studio
clearly had no idea how to advertise this intelligent, adult thriller,
so they dumped it in a platform release allowing it neither to build buzz
from the art house crowd or to at least make small waves with a wide release.
If Spartan, the most mishandled movie of the year, had debuted
on the festival circuit and built some buzz, it would have been an Indie
hit. By stranding it between audiences (is it an art movie or a Val Kilmer
action movie?) it's merely one of most unjustly overlooked films in a
long time.
Brian
Tallerico, UGO Screenwriter's Voice
 As
Mamet would be the first to point out, like nearly all 'either/or' questions,
Tallerico's question - is it an art movie or a Val Kilmer action movie
- is fallacious. The answer is 'both'. This falling-between-stools
presumably explains Warners daft strategy, which extended to the UK -
the film received a strictly 'bare bones' form of contract-fulfulling
'nationwide' release: one week in a handful of cinemas, with none located
between Glasgow and Sheffield. Which meant a 260-mile roundtrip drive
for this critic between Sunderland and the latter venue in order to catch
Spartan on a big screen. And this despite my lukewarm reaction
to Mamet's previous picture Heist
(2001) and positively stone-cold dislike of 2000's State
and Main (2000).
So why did
I go out of my way for Spartan? An unexpected rave-review
from top net-critic Mike d'Angelo for one. Second, the trailer in which
William H Macy delivers the line "We would have let her go, but you
had to put on your thinking cap!" with the kind of zinging spin you
only get when Macy speaks Mamet. Thirdly, I sensed Mamet was back on safe
turf after two relatively lightweight comedies. Not that Mamet isn't very
funny: that "thinking cap" line is inexplicably hilarious. But,
like so many other talented film-makers (Shane
Meadows for one) he can't do comedy. His nailed-down dialogue is so
airless there's little room to breathe, never mind laugh - the fact that
people don't really talk like that keeps getting in the way.
Spartan,
however, is set in a world - the US military and security services - where
people probably do "talk like that" : terse and sharp, chock
full of staccato repetitions and profanity-studded jargon so hard-boiled
it skirts indecipherability ("You need to set your motherfucker to
'receive' "). Most of it here goes to Val Kilmer as Scott,
an obnoxiously take-no-prisoners special-forces operative called upon
by Uncle Sam as when the president's tearaway daughter Laura (Kristen
Bell) is kidnapped into a modern version of the 'white slave trade.' But
the gang don't realise what they've got on their hands, reckoning Laura
is just an ordinary American blonde in a Boston bar. Complications ensue.
My instincts
were sound - the drive was worthwhile: Spartan is easily the best
of the six Mamet-directed films I've seen. But a cult of over-reaction
seems to be building up as a consequence of Warner's hamfisted release
strategy. It's a bit like when The Wicker Man was out of circulation
for years, or when half-a-dozen Hitchcocks temporarily vanished during
a 1970s copyright wrangle. Yes, these pictures are all good - but
to rank Spartan as one of the 2004's best is a step or three too
far. Especially when juxtaposed with the similarly globe-trotting, no-nonsense
Bourne Supremacy.
There's an
awful lot to like about Spartan, however: Mamet keeps the 24-ish
action moving fast, propelled by Mark Isham's pounding score (further
excellent work after the similarly under-exposed, but otherwise vastly
inferior Highwaymen).
Taking his cue from the brutally zen-straight Scott, there's no romantic
subplot to get in the way. And thus, amazingly, no room for Rebecca Pidgeon,
who's had prominent roles in all of Mamet's movies since the pair married
in 1995. Her absence is so startling that the more prurient may rush off
to Google the phrase 'Mamet Pidgeon divorce' (with fruitless results)
and it's perhaps disappointing that the soundtrack fails to feature a
certain, punningly apt track by Sporty
Thievz.
But the real
joy is, of course, the dialogue - unmistakably spare and bare, but with
sufficient touches of ambition, lightly-worn erudition (title refers to
tactics deployed by Leonidas, King of Sparta) and off-kilter wit ("You
wanted to go through the looking glass. How was it? Was it more fun than
miniature golf?") to lift Spartan far above the normal run
of twisty khaki-tinged thrillers. Such as, say, John McTiernan's misleadingly-titled,
incomprehensible Basic.
With Spartan,
you may not always know exactly what's going on or why, but you generally
get the gist. And the payoff comes with an extended shootout finale set
in a Dubai airport hangar: nail-biting, chair-gripping stuff - even if
it does feature an unforgivably handy potential 'escape route' for Laura
in the form of a Swedish TV crew and their private plane. One of several
contrivances and coincidences along the way, this is an implausible and
lazy touch - but not quite as distractingly daft as those Japanese 'tourists'
who suddenly produced a rocket-launcher to ruin the climax of his 1997
Spanish Prisoner. After nine features, and several misfires, it
seems Mamet may have finally set his motherfucker to 'achieve'.
12th August,
2004
(seen 11th August : UGC, Sheffield Centertainment : public show)
by Neil
Young
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