Spartan

This film stars Val Kilmer as a cold, calculating, bad ass black-ops U.S. Army Ranger field agent named Scott who is tasked to find and extract the President's daughter before the press catches wind of her being missing. Time is of the essence in this movie. The daughter, who's attending Harvard, but sleeping around with everyone on campus including her professor, gets mysteriously nabbed by an Arab sex-slave trade ring and is trafficked to transfer house in Dubai for prostitution. A plot twist has Kilmer's character turn into a rogue agent forcing him to gather up some latent compassion and obligingly rescue her on his own. It's a good plot altogether, but the movie seems at times contrived due to the Mamet-esque screen writing that typically emphasizes forced and deliberate dialogue over natural language flow. Think Glengarry Glen Ross. I strongly believe that Mamet is an over-talented fish who's artistic talents belong in the theatre, but somehow he manages to flop around and breath life into film, his medium of choice, and pull off worthwhile entertainment with his own stylistic flare.

Spartan's an interesting movie, if only to see Mamet's take on a familiar idea. Worth seeing.

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