Spartan
dir. David Mamet
Warner Bros.

It's safe to assume that most of the people who seek out David Mamet's Spartan will be drawn in by his renown for crafting thrillers for the intellectual set. Those who expect a sterile exercise in script recitation will likely be surprised, however, by all the squib-bursting, woman-punching, testosterone-stoked havoc. Mamet has nurtured a reputation for using rather clichéd genre pieces as staging grounds for his elemental approach to drama and his parsimonious dialogue. Not until Spartan, however, have his efforts as a director been applied to a story exciting enough to make such a compelling movie. Here, he indulges a story as pulpy and lurid as his words and direction are spare and restrained.

Val Kilmer plays a secret government agent who springs into action when the president's daughter is kidnapped. Predictably enough, his investigation leads down dark corridors his superiors wish to keep hidden and, when he learns too much, he must go rogue to fulfill his mission. Naturally, he comes to question where his true allegiances lie, and the process leads him to ever greater levels of self-actualization.

Given Mamet's usual narrative economy, though, what is really surprising is just how far into direct-to-Cinemax territory he is willing to carry his story. Not only does Kilmer's character have to fight the good fight of Mamet's trademarked working everyman, he also has to fight against mustache-twirling Arab supervillians, sociopathic pimps, the bustling Boston sex slave trade and a massive government conspiracy. If there is any balance in this world, right now Jerry Bruckheimer is recasting his King Arthur to feature Mamet regular Ricky Jay as Merlin, who will refer to Arthur only as "the man" and Excalibur only as "the sword."

Spartan finds all involved pushing at the boundaries set by their previous work. Where Mamet lunges towards violent hyperbole, Kilmer moves in exactly the opposite direction: By choosing such films as Spartan, Wonderland and The Salton Sea, he seems intent on adding a veneer of arthouse credibility to his fizzling role as a bankable box-office star. He chooses to grapple with Mamet and acquits himself well, smuggling a surprising amount of warmth and nuance into the writer-director's chilly asthetic. The central relationship, between Kilmer and his trainee and new partner Derek Luke, is ably played, particularly considering that both actors are novices in the Mamet system. Kilmer in particular is adept at conjuring several different levels of desperate belligerence out of that peculiar voice Mamet bestows upon almost all of his creations. The main characters are enthusiastically supported by a team of Mamet veterans (William H. Macy, Clark Gregg, Ed O'Neill) who bark out exposition and slight variations on the movie's signature exclamation, "Where's the girl?" The absence of repertory member (and Mamet spouse) Rebecca Pidgeon is keenly felt, considering the performance she might have given as a world-weary Beantown madam.

Spartan also expands stylistically on previous Mamet efforts. Juan Ruiz Anchia, who turned in rather anonymous cinematography on Glengarry Glen Ross and Things Change, is much more active here, bathing night scenes in the blue glow of fluorescents and enlivening daylight scenes with color pops and overexposed sunlight. These gestures toward an available-light aesthetic, while nothing to recommend the film on their own, help move this production as far from a talking-heads, filmed script reading as a Mamet film has ever been. Similarly, the inclusion of nonverbal action set pieces like a shootout at a roadside diner help set Spartan a step beyond the conventions of its pedigree.

Ultimately, the film is well served by its contradictory impulses toward both dialogue-driven character study and flying-bullets exploitation flick. On one hand, the rather staid Mamet approach to filmmaking frames his wildly trashy story in a much-needed deadpan. Written or acted with any less care, the film would seem hopelessly cartoonish. By the same token, the more explicitly violent content helps to validate the themes of masculinity and cunning to which Mamet's films have never been particularly well suited. Consider that for all the supposed stoicism and blue-collar simplicity of the criminals in Heist or the con artists of The Spanish Prisoner, they do tend to resolve their conflicts by trading well-mannered witticisms and then outwitting each other with increasingly elaborate schemes. When violence does sprout in these films, it's presented as little more than Mamet's machine-gun patois made manifest — the only fitting end to a con man caught one retort short. How can it be that for all the testosterone that David Mamet has spilled in film, the men of Spartan are the first who are willing to shut up and crack skulls?

— Matthew Fisher (roger_thornhill@hotmail.com)