“Spartan” is a hard-charging, artful thriller in which writer-director David Mamet (“The Spanish Prisoner,” “State and Main”) takes aim at the amoral political establishment and the media that serves them. Mamet nails his targets with typical recalcitrance while wisely dispensing with the usual Clancy-esque bombast so prevalent and played out in the espionage genre. The result is a film that is as taut as it is tart. If you like your cynicism served with some high-powered action, “Spartan” is right up your tenebrous alley.
Val Kilmer is very effective here as an impenetrable spook named Robert Scott, a military-trained assassin who dispassionately follows orders without hesitation. Scott kills because his government tells him to and his strict sense of duty has always precluded him from questioning his actions. When the president’s daughter, Laura Newton (Kristen Bell), is kidnapped from her Harvard dorm, Scott is recruited to track her down before the press gets wind of her disappearance. He’s teamed with agent-in-training Curtis (Derek Luke of “Antwone Fisher”), who quickly learns that Scott will stop at nothing to accomplish his mission. Just when it seems she’s about to be recovered, however, the media reports Laura was killed in a sailing accident.
With Curtis’s help, Scott discovers that his conscience-bereft superiors, Burch (Ed O’Neill) and his right-hand man Stoddard (William H. Macy) are involved in a dangerous conspiracy and that the president’s daughter may still be alive. It’s a turning point for Scott, who must finally follow the conscience he’d long ago put on ice. As you’d expect, there are more twists and turns in “Spartan” than on a Rocky Mountain road and with Mamet leading the way, the cast smoothly negotiates the ambages. Kilmer, in particular, brings conviction and complexity to a role lesser talents may have mishandled. There’s a lot more to Scott than initially meets the eye, and the veteran actor skillfully executes the reveal. Engendering empathy for a killer that inhabits a mysterious world most people cannot comprehend is no small accomplishment, and it’s to Kilmer’s credit that by film’s end we really get this guy. (Rated R for violence and language. Running time: 106 minutes)
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on March 12, 2004. Read the original PDF.