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Spartan

Mixed or average reviews
Based on 34 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 23 votes
Read user comments
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Movie Info
Genre(s): Suspense/Thriller
Written by: David Mamet
Directed by: David Mamet
Release Date:
Theatrical: March 12, 2004
DVD: June 15, 2004
Running Time: 106 minutes, Color
Origin: USA / Germany
Summary
RATING: R for violence and language
Starring Val Kilmer, Derek Luke, William H. Macy, Kristen Bell, Alexandra Kerry, Johnny Messner, and Tia Texada
This political thriller stars Val Kilmer as career military officer working in a highly secretive special operations force that uncovers a white slavery ring.
Also On Metacritic
FILM: Heist Redbelt State and Main The Spanish Prisoner The Winslow Boy
Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database View The Trailer Official Studio Site
What The Critics Said
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt
When he's good, Mr. Mamet is very good indeed, and Spartan stands with the best work he's done. It's fast-moving, unpredictable, and as tautly, tightly wound as thrillers get.
Read Full Review >Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
The patter is always fascinating, and at right angles to the action. [Mamet]'s like a magician who gets you all involved in his story about the King, the Queen and the Jack, while the whole point is that there's a rabbit in your pocket.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Desson Thomson
Until its final stumble, this intelligence thriller, starring Val Kilmer, is charged with brilliance.
Read Full Review >The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott Tobias
Using simplicity as another form of deception, Mamet lays out a hand of three-card monte for the audience to see, then tricks it into guessing falsely. In this case, it's worth getting fooled out of a little cash.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Michael O'Sullivan
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.
Read Full Review >Austin Chronicle Marjorie Baumgarten
A political thriller with topical currency, Spartan delivers the goods.
Read Full Review >Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea
An entertaining foray into a world of spy guys, stakeouts and secret government machinations, Spartan teems with the kind of terse crypto-speak that is the playwright and filmmaker's stock-in-trade.
Read Full Review >Chicago Tribune Mark Caro
Mamet being Mamet, the story has far greater repercussions than whether the kidnap victim will be returned to safety. This is a tale of grand conspiracies, formidable forces, shadow warfare; the more that is revealed, the higher the stakes become.
Read Full Review >Baltimore Sun Chris Kaltenbach
Don't go expecting a good time to be had. But by all means, go to revel in a movie that, for about two-thirds of its length, is Mamet at the top of his game -- intelligent, tightly crafted, densely layered.
Read Full Review >Boston Globe Ty Burr
When Spartan is good, it's surprisingly gripping and fresh, and when it's bad, it's just another overcooked Hollywood paranoid thriller.
Read Full Review >ReelViews James Berardinelli
The movie worked for me both as a commentary on the electoral process and as a slightly overcooked thriller.
Read Full Review >Slate David Edelstein
Sometimes I wonder how Mamet can get out of bed, he's so paranoid, let along crank out two-thirds (at least) of a thriller this crackerjack. I hope that next time he leaves out the (booby) prize.
Read Full Review >The New York Times Dana Stevens
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.
Read Full Review >Seattle Post-Intelligencer Sean Axmaker
This a film where men on both sides of the line are seasoned and efficient. Men after Mamet's own heart.
Read Full Review >USA Today Mike Clark
This is one of those movies in which a strong ending might have made all the difference...But the wrap-up is unsatisfying, with too many questions unanswered.
Read Full Review >The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Ray Conlogue
Spartan is all good. Then it isn't. Then it isn't at all good. Not at all.
Read Full Review >The New Republic Stanley Kauffmann
Mamet's understanding of the essentials here and his skill in supplying them are not major achievements for him, but it would be wasteful not to recognize them. Spartan is another feather, though a small one, in his cap.
Read Full Review >Empire Chris Hewitt
Being a Mamet, we expect superb dialogue and twists, but we also get refreshingly compact action scenes, even if the climactic airport skirmish is on the pat side. A lesser Mamet, then, but still compelling.
Read Full Review >Dallas Observer Luke Y. Thompson
The problem with Spartan isn't so much that it's mediocre, but that it could be a whole lot better.
Read Full Review >Variety Robert Koehler
A work that continually seems on the verge of genuine excitement but sabotages itself at every turn...results will intrigue only those interested in the nooks and crannies of Mamet's career.
Read Full Review >New York Magazine Peter Rainer
Spartan is a character study embedded in an action-hero scenario. Neither aspect ever really breaks loose.
Read Full Review >Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman
Just cryptic enough to keep you guessing, and for some viewers that may qualify as a night out. But Mamet's gamesmanship was more fun when it was less eager to look important.
Read Full Review >Village Voice Michael Atkinson
David Mamet takes on the digi-tech, hard-Clancy-core intel thriller most often inflated by Tony Scott and like-minded plodders, and typically he elevates it, botches it, and exploits it for searing political comment.
Read Full Review >LA Weekly Scott Foundas
Terrifically terrible, Spartan could well be Mamet's first true comedy. Only the movie thinks it's a nail biter.
Read Full Review >Rolling Stone Peter Travers
Imagine David Mamet rewriting his political satire "Wag the Dog" -- in which a president and his advisers declare war to distract the media from the prez's horn-dog activities -- as a joke-free kidnap drama.
Read Full Review >New York Post Lou Lumenick
Starts out promisingly, but quickly sinks under the weight of its own plot twists, ponderous pacing and Val Kilmer's monotonous performance as a ruthless special-ops agent.
Read Full Review >San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle
The film remains, clearly by design, a cold piece, mechanistic and only intermittently involving.
Read Full Review >New York Daily News Jack Mathews
If I were in the sign business, I'd produce a bumper sticker that reads "Even smart people make dumb movies" -- and give the first one to David Mamet.
Read Full Review >TV Guide Maitland McDonagh
David Mamet's political thriller about the disappearance of the president's daughter is an unsatisfying slipknot of a film -- it looks tight and elaborate, but give it a tug and it goes flat.
Read Full Review >Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek
Spartan is the same old stuff, but now it's been thoroughly Mametized, like a spray-on treatment you could spritz out of a can.
Read Full Review >Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum
The heroes (Kilmer, Derek Luke) are all totally good, the villains (Ed O'Neill, William H. Macy) are all totally bad, and the macho one-liners are sufficiently adolescent to produce the desired snickers. I tried very hard to imagine I was somewhere else.
Read Full Review >Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern
Feelings play second fiddle to stylized attitudes in Spartan, and fancy style can't conceal the film's clumsiness.
Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan
(Mamet) backslides to a system that has his speeches read in a stylized way. The result is language that sounds unhappily artificial and characters who behave like they are less than real.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 7.3 (out of 10) based on 23 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
GB J gave it a10:
This is a movie for planners, not shooters. Mamet and Kilmer are at the top of their game here, opening the puzzle box bit by bit. The film perfectly captures the tempo and temper of special ops, political power plays, and media hysteria.
t. m. gave it a3:
This movie sucks, plain and simple. Mamet is highly overrated, and so is his dialogue. It is as laughable as this film is confusing and dull. A good cast and two hours of my life were wasted.
Zach C gave it a9:
This is a great film. pure and simple. What it requires of the viewer is to record and catalog every line of dialog through the first 20-30 minutes, and then connect all of those stored clues and weave them together to form the conclusion. I have watched this film over and over again pickin up new clues and answering old questions with every viewing. The musical score is excellent keeping excellent pace with the pace and setting of the plot. A couple of things to note though. One, Val Kilmer IS A MARINE! Sorry had to get that off my chest. The Army doesn't have Master Gunnery Sargents, folks. People I guess are getting thrown off of this fact during the first five minutes of the film when Val Kilmer's future sidekick tries to "bond" with Val by showing him his dad's Ranger book from WW2. If anything it's the sidekick that I have a problem with, but luckily I didn't have to suffer much through his performances. Great dialog, very smart, and not a single wasted word. Of course people do not act like this, that's what makes it a movie. All i can say is that it is a great flick and if you like spook/military movies then you'll enjoy this one for sure.
Chris P. gave it a4:
The twists and turns in the plot were alright, but the dialogue between characters completely turned me off of this movie. [Man: Do you want a cigarette? Woman: Can you produce one?] Who SAYS that?!?
Chris V. gave it an 8:
I found the flick to be interestingly plotted, excellently acted in an understated fashion with a wonderfuly subtlety to the characters. Not perfect at the end, and dissapointingly few extras on the DVD.
Jay G gave it a 6:
Some very cool scenes, but bottom line to David Mamet: PEOPLE DO NOT TALK OR ACT LIKE THIS.
Michael B. gave it a 5:
This is the worst kind of movie: One that attempts to merely confuse the audience with pointless plot turns, surprises, and lack of detail. Mamet seems to enjoy introducing key characters, not giving any detail about them, then forgetting them altogether, only to reintroduce them some time later and kill them off. If this movie had more focus, it could've been great, but instead it's just a mediocre espionage/thriller.
