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That could be because both of them are assholes, possibly the
two most notorious assholes in the entertainment industry. But
either way, they wind up making a delectable team in "Spartan,"
Mamet's edgy new thriller about government agents investigating
an elaborate kidnapping.
Only
Mamet and Kilmer together could pull off the quiet, sarcastic
cool of the scene in which Kilmer, working undercover as a lethal
con, has a gun to his main target's head. "Please, don't
shoot, I am your brother," the man pleads.
"My
brother beat me," Kilmer snarls back.
The
target, at this point anyway, is an Arabic mogul (Saïd Taghmaoui)
who kidnaps blondes to sell them as whores. He's recently nabbed
the President's daughter (Kristen Bell), a Harvard student who
unfortunately just dyed her hair, as part of a convoluted plot
to improve her father's campaign.
Kilmer
and crew interrogate the involved parties around Cambridge and
Martha's Vineyard, and while Kilmer's newest protégé
(Derek Luke), turns out to be the brains behind the operation,
it's Kilmer's merciless cross-examining methods that ultimately
get the job done. He'll even collar the elderly owner of a brothel
and chuck her across the room.
"Spartan"
is undoubtedly Mamet's most generic work to date, and the twists
are hardly original, but he throws in just enough touches of his
patented hard-boiled dialogue to keep it out of Bruckheimer country
(in fact, it is probably for the best that the stilted, broken-up
conversational banter that made "Glengarry Glen Ross"
and "Oleanna" such smashes is lacking from a film about
secret agents, who can hardly talk at all).
And
Kilmer, his face rigid and steely as ever, is a highly believable
man of action within this frigid and impulsive industry he works
for. There's no heart, no emotional motivation, nor does his character
even seem that heroic; he's a man of few words, all one-liners,
unintelligible jargon-there are whole scenes that will lose the
audience completely-and dislocating various joints.
"I
think you broke my arm!" a potential suspect wails during
a frisk.
"Now
it's broken," Kilmer declares, a slam and a pop later.
There
may be controversy over the plot device that the main villains
are Arabic, and real creepy ones, at that, but at least there's
no suicide bombing or threats to take over the whole world. And
at least-quite predictably-this reprehensible line of business
is actually triggered by Stupid White Men.
"Spartan"
is a chilling experience throughout, and it once again proves
that the trick of scenes shot predominantly through laser targets
will never grow old.
The
story, as a whole, is less cluttered than that of "The Spanish
Prisoner," Mamet's last thriller, which also dealt with role-playing
and undercover personalities.
It
could actually use a bit more of that sort of murky tension in
its closing minutes, as the final outcome is a bit of a cop-out.
And it might have helped to have the actors mumble less in key
scenes where a lot of covert information is revealed quickly and
with intentional lack of detail.
Still,
the many excellent performances keep "Spartan" afloat.
There
are appearances by several recognizable Mamet regulars, including
Clark Gregg, Vincent Guastaferro, and, joyfully, the great William
H. Macy. His presence in "Spartan" is all too brief,
but he adds a lurking, eerie air to his scenes.
Where,
however, is Ricky Jay, the bear-like magician whom Mamet has convincingly
displayed as a criminal low-life in film after film for over a
decade? His absence is one of "Spartan's" key frustrating
flaws.
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