Directed with lean efficiency by David Mamet, Spartan is the most cynical thriller of the post-9/11 era. In the wake of the attack, many films eschewed nationalism and instead considered America’s role as a world police (to borrow a phrase from another 2004 film). What makes the film so bitter, so deeply skeptical of America’s institutions and moral authority, is how Mamet frames the twists and espionage in terms of con games and deception he built his career exploring. House of Games and The Spanish Prisoner feature con men who trick losers into giving them money. That is basically what happens in Spartan, except the goal is not getting rich. These conmen want persistent, unchecked political power for a status quo that is too big to comprehend fully.
The opening sequences may seem like a non-sequitur, yet they are important for the character development that follows. We meet Scott (Val Kilmer), a tough-talking trainer for an elite military force. He speaks in the kind of clipped shorthand that suggests deep, marrow-deep skill at his profession. At one point, a fellow instructor says she is teaching knife fighting, and without blinking an eye, Scott says, “Don’t you teach them knife fighting. Teach them to kill.” This would sound silly from most actors, but luckily Kilmer has no problem with the deadpan style Mamet has perfected over decades in film and theater. Scott gets called away from his normal duties to Boston, where he learns the President’s daughter (Kristen Bell) is missing. Spartan then unfolds like a procedural, with Scott breaking countless rules of normal police procedure to find her. Ultimately, Scott believes she was kidnapped by unwitting sex traffickers, and just before he is about to leave for a covert rescue mission, something strange happens: the news announces she is dead.
At this point, the audience is on an unsure footing about what is really happening. Someone is lying, but we cannot figure out who, or why. More importantly, Mamet pulls the rug out from his audience, which creates a feeling of disorientation. Part of the appeal of Spartan is now we must reconsider what kind of film we are actually watching, and what secrets are being held in plain sight. Scott insists he is a soldier’s soldier, the kind who will follow any order, no matter how unethical and immoral, in pursuit of his objective (at one point, he murders a policeman in cold blood just to trick someone into trusting him). But what happens when his subordinate (Derek Luke) points out unresolved clues, and there is a conspiracy within the conspiracy? Mamet puts his hero in this moral quandary, which forces him to abandon his unwavering sense of duty because – finally – he cannot abandon his conscience.
Mamet does not have the budget for big action sequences, and he uses the limited resources to his advantage. The shoot-outs and sudden and brief, with the suspense less about flying bullets and more about split-second decision-making. Although this a dialogue-heavy thriller, Mamet is a shrewd action director, following the business of attack and defense so we never lose our spatial awareness. The best scenes, however, involve Scott thinking on his feet. What do you say when you break into someone’s house, you’re caught, and you need to buy yourself a few seconds? Scott knows the answer. When you show up to rescue the President’s daughter alone, how do you get her to trust you? Scott figures it out. His methods are unorthodox – at one point, he hits the daughter to stop her from screaming – yet they get results.
Anxiety over whether the ends justify the means is central to the post-9/11 understanding of foreign policy, something Spartan embraces to its core. All the supporting characters compromise themselves, including the film’s eventual villain, because they believe in a higher calling. Sometimes that calling is serving their masters, while for others it is more about the preservation of The American Way at its most abstract. Scott is an unlikely hero because he starts as a loyal pawn, and keeps his evolving point of view almost entirely to himself. By the end of the film, no one knows what he sacrificed and what he accomplished, and that is just as fine with him. He understands that getting any credit would undermine America’s worldwide credibility. This is a man who thinks for himself, yet still believes in a corrupt system that ultimately betrays him. Scott may develop a conscience, although it is not entirely clear whether he develops an appreciation for irony.
Another irony behind Spartan is the trajectory of Mamet’s career after he made the film. After a TV series and one other feature (the martial arts thriller Redbelt), Mamet became a conservative reactionary and Hollywood outsider in short order. I do not want to litigate Mamet’s “just saw the light” approach to conservatism — the late Christopher Hitchens already did that — although it is noteworthy that, at its core, Spartan is a liberal film. No doubt it annoyed the Bush Administration, since it depicted statecraft with credibility and suggested that everyone in that hierarchy is complicit in trafficking (of attractive young blonde American girls, no less). Scott is the “spartan,” a lone warrior who suspends due process to protect the homeland, and yet he is more of a janitor than a hero. Maybe Mamet could not shake his contempt after this film, so his only recourse was to renounce the politics that led him there. Either way, Spartan remains the final great film from a singular filmmaker, the kind of thriller that demands trust, before rewarding anyone who gives it the benefit of the doubt in return.
The post Holy Hell! Spartan Turns 20 appeared first on Spectrum Culture.