Spartan

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.

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.

Washington Post Desson Thomson

Until its final stumble, this intelligence thriller, starring Val Kilmer, is charged with brilliance.

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.

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.

Austin Chronicle Marjorie Baumgarten

A political thriller with topical currency, Spartan delivers the goods.

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.

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.

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.

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.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

The movie worked for me both as a commentary on the electoral process and as a slightly overcooked thriller.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

New York Magazine Peter Rainer

Spartan is a character study embedded in an action-hero scenario. Neither aspect ever really breaks loose.

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.

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.

LA Weekly Scott Foundas

Terrifically terrible, Spartan could well be Mamet's first true comedy. Only the movie thinks it's a nail biter.

The Hollywood Reporter Michael Rechtshaffen

Ultimately unsatisfying.

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.

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.

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

The film remains, clearly by design, a cold piece, mechanistic and only intermittently involving.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.