Spartan

It isn't bad. Matter of fact, it is pretty good. The first few minutes are corny, but the rest of the movie is great. Basically Val Kilmer tracks this 19-year-old girl down. He shoots alot of people and the action is great. I mean, it's not like he has a futuristic blaster and blasts people in the shoulder. I love movies with guns that look real and I love seeing cool gun fights. This movie has quite a few gun fights and they are good. They are imaginable also. The guns are awesome.

The movie's plot is okay, but again, the gun fights and guns make it worth watching. Also, the plot has quite a few twists, including alot of things that you wouldn't exactly be prepared for.

This movie isn't "bad". It's good, and after watching it I was pretty impressed.

Both in his previous film, Heist, and in Spartan, Mamet shows a growing mastery of direction. Spartan is set in a rather sinister shadow-world of secret military operations ruled by unsavory civilians. It's an atmosphere that may make you cringe a little, but it's certainly germane to the storyline, and Mamet builds it up skillfully detail by detail. He even trusts the audience enough that for a few minutes at the film's beginning, you're not sure what you're watching or its meaning, only that it feels creepy.

By the time it becomes clear what's at stake -- the president's daughter, a college student wasted on drugs, has been kidnapped, not for political reasons but by a sex-slave organization that doesn't even know who she is -- you understand why the secret mission to recover her is entrusted to the character played by Val Kilmer, tough enough to chew razor blades and for whom only accomplishing the mission matters.

Mamet displays a knack here for mood painting through visuals and the apt musical score by Mark Isham. A black light shines through many a scene. I am emphasizing this side of Mamet's work because I don't think he gets as much credit for it as he deserves; what everyone remarks on is his dialogue.

As usual, he puts plenty of abrasive poetry in the mouths of his characters, and adds little touches of eccentricity without getting carried away by them (as Altman so often does). He seems to be a good actor's director, too. Kilmer is certainly an asset, and Mamet gets strong performances out of a cast with few big names. Particularly striking is an actress I've never seen before by the name of Kristen Bell (I won't tell you her role because it might be a spoiler if I did).

Mamet, for all his much-noted facility with surprises and switches, isn't as good at plotting as he is at dialogue. Spartan falls into genre cliches at times and includes unlikely events and coincidences. Even when the script gets formulaic, though, Mamet's special brand of cinematic chemistry rarely lets up.