Movies - Spartan

Home > Listing Index > Movies > Spartan (film)

	Movies - Spartan

Spartan is an action-adventure/political thriller film written and directed by David Mamet. It was released in U.S. and Canada in March 2004. The film's cast includes Val Kilmer, Derek Luke, William H. Macy, Ed O'Neill, Tia Texada, and Kristen Bell. Alexandra Kerry, the daughter of U.S. Senator John Kerry, plays a small role as a bartender in the film.

Tagline: She's missing.

Plot summary

Robert Scott (Kilmer) is a coldly-efficient Special Forces operative who trains recruits to serve in various capacities for the government, namely the Secret Service. When Laura Newton (Bell), the Harvard-schooled daughter of a high-ranking government official turns up missing, Scott is drawn into the operation to find her. He is aided on his assignment by two of his trainees, Curtis (Luke) and Jackie Black (Texada). The investigation takes him from Boston into the heart of a white slavery ring operating out of the Middle East, as he navigates through a number of twists, doublecrosses, and tested loyalties along the way.

Mamet, a master of the confidence game, uses the framework of the studio action picture to touch on a few points about the symbiosis between the mass media and the political arena. The end result is not unlike a more sinister examination of themes explored in Mamet's screenplay for Wag the Dog. He also manages to exude a workman's touch with the film's many scenes of sudden, brutal violence, free from the stylized mayhem of many larger-budget studio affairs. As always, the dialogue -- a rhythmic mishmash of profanity, jargon, and anachronism -- reveals Mamet's gift for otherworldly, grandiloquent banter.

Trivia

The title makes allusions to Leonidas I, king of Sparta, who, when a neighbor state needed military aid, would send one man. As Scott puts it, "One riot, one ranger." (Mamet previously wrote this line into House of Games
.)

Of note: The film's Dubai settings were actually filmed in Los Angeles.

Eric L. Haney, a career Army non-commissioned officer and member of Delta Force, was a technical advisor and had a small cameo in the film playing the president.

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Spartan (film) ]

This page is based on the copyrighted Wikipedia article Spartan (film); it is used under the GNU Free Documentation License. You may redistribute it, verbatim or modified, providing that you comply with the terms of the GFDL.

Movies - Spartan

Plot summary

Trivia

Searches on eBay

Related searches on eBay