Genre: Crime, Mystery, Thriller, Drama, Military, Prostitution, Spy, Political, Suspense, Kidnapping
Tagline: She's missing
Plot: Robert Scott (VAL KILMER) is a career military officer working for a highly secretive special operations force. A man hardened by years of brutal service, he is respected by his peers and elders in the world of espionage.When Scott is recruited to find Laura Newton (KRISTEN BELL), the President’s college-age daughter, he is paired with novice Curtis (DEREK LUKE), who becomes his protégé. Working with a special task force comprised of Presidential Advisors, the Secret Service, FBI and CIA, Scott and Curtis stumble upon a white slavery ring, which may have some connection to Laura’s disappearance. As the story unfolds, the straightforward search-and-rescue mission becomes complicated by Curtis’ naiveté and the political ambitions of those in high places – like Burch (ED O’NEILL) and Stoddard (WILLIAM H. MACY), political operatives who may know more than they’re telling about the circumstances surrounding Laura’s abduction. Scott and Curtis are on the brink of tracking Laura’s whereabouts when their clandestine mission comes to an abrupt conclusion as the media issues reports of the girl’s death. Scott returns to the quiet life as a rural landowner and awaits his next assignment in relative peace. But Curtis can’t rest. He seeks out Scott to confide his belief that Laura is
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 David Mamet's "Spartan" is a so-so thriller that has all the Mamet touches - tough guys, sharp dialogue, surprise twists. The only problem - and it dooms the movie to mediocrity - is that the film's big plot surprise comes at the end of the second act and Mamet has absolutely no idea where to take the movie from there. So what we get are increasing levels of silliness.  -- (L.A. Daily News)
Great acting? Check. Great script with unpredictable twists and turns? Check. Script well-executed by a director who doesn't let style overwhelm storytelling? Check. The kind of movie that has you – at the end – going "FUCK YEAH!"? Check. 9/10-- (CHUD.com)
For most of its running time ''Spartan,'' a political thriller with the lonely, aching, slightly musty soul of a film noir, is a vigorous and engrossing genre exercise that manages the difficult trick of being both logically meticulous and genuinely surprising. Its elaborately implausible story gestures now and then toward an idea, but the movie's main concern is technique.--A. O. SCOTT (The New York Times)
The particular pleasure of "Spartan" is to watch the characters gradually define themselves and the plot gradually emerge like your face in a steamy mirror. You see the outlines, and then your nose, and then you see that somebody is standing behind you, and then you see it's you -- so who is the guy in the mirror?  --ROGER EBERT (Chicago Sun-Times)
Spartan is a political thriller much in the "Mamet thriller" mold. Like House of Games, The Spanish Prisoner, and Heist, this movie features a number of twists and turns, a few of which aren't remotely plausible, but which, if you go along for the ride, result in an entertainingly over-the-top tale of good, evil, sex, and betrayal (all the things we go to the movies for).  --James Berardinelli (ReelViews)
Val Kilmer delivers his lines like they're beat poetry in this thoroughly Mametized -- but not very thrilling -- search-and-rescue thriller.-- (Salon)
Oozing the paranoid atmosphere of the great '60s/'70s political thrillers by directors such as John Frankenheimer, it's still Mamet all the way down to the irony-drenched core. Happily, the filmmaker reins in his tendency toward the dizzying plot over-twisting that made "Heist" and "The Spanish Prisoner" a little too clever for their own good.  --Michael Tunison (Boxoffice Magazine)
Is "Spartan" a perfect, or even a great, movie? Probably not. But in its prickly irascibility and deeply unsettling intelligence, it makes for a very, very good one.--Michael O'Sullivan (Washington Post)
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| Directed by |
David Mamet
State and Main, Heist, The Spanish Prisoner |
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| Cast |
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 | Clark Gregg
The Usual Suspects, Magnolia, Artificial Intelligence: AI |
 | Steven Culp
James and the Giant Peach, Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday, How to Make a Monster |
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 | Ed O'Neill
The Bone Collector, The Adventures of Ford Fairlane, Lucky Numbers |
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| Mamet has a talent for giving you just enough detail to keep you deeply engrossed and hungry for more. In a way, "Spartan" is a 106-minute round of riverboat poker, with the stakes piling ever higher in the middle of the table. It's just too bad movies can't be just like poker games, where a good gambler can walk away with his winnings without having to lay down his cards. "Spartan" has to follow the Hollywood house rules: full disclosure. As soon as Mamet does that, he comes up short. --Desson Thomson (Washington Post)
It's rare that Mamet both writes and directs a film, as he's done here, and his work--full of twists, double entendres and sleight of hand--is constantly engaging and challenging, even when it decides to bend reality later on. Enjoy the ride. B+-- (E! Online)
This film moves quickly, doesn't take the time to explain every detail to the audience and tosses enough cryptic dialogue in there to confuse anyone, but if you enjoy mystery flicks with lots of dark shadows, hard-ass pursuers, immoral bad guys and conspiracies all around, check out SPARTAN and email me to let me know why Ed O'Neill doesn't get more serious movie gigs. Great man. 7/10-- (JoBlo.com)
"Spartan" takes aim at the perceived moral corruption of the current White House, but the story is so ludicrous and the tone so hysterical, it's hard to imagine anyone taking it personally.  --Jack Mathews (New York Daily News)
As a thriller, Spartan will hold your attention, but unfortunately writer/director's David Mamet's style doesn't fit well in this milieu. --Kit Bowen (Hollywood.com)
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