Spartan

A kidnapping film written and directed by David Mamet. Robert Scott is a man trained in special operations. He is assigned to find a missing girl and is not told who she is. It soon becomes clear: the missing person is the president's daughter, and the case leads into a human trafficking network. Mamet's method is the film's most distinct property: he does no setting up. Characters do not explain who they are, terms are not defined, scenes begin in the middle. The viewer is expected to work out what is happening at the same moment the characters do. The dialogue is short, repetitive and nothing like natural speech; the rhythm Mamet brought from the theatre stands here too. The action is built on the same logic: the shootouts are short, unexplained and unshowy. Val Kilmer plays Scott, Derek Luke a young agent and William H. Macy a senior figure in the agency. An interesting example of the genre for anyone who likes Mamet's sense of dialogue and cold espionage films. For a viewer who expects everything to be spelled out, the film repeats nothing; lose attention and the plot does not come back.