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DVD Spartan
Writer-director David Mamet (House of Games, The Spanish Prisoner) applies his gift for con games to the world of politics with Spartan. A super-duper Secret Service agent (Val Kilmer, Wonderland) is assigned to find the kidnapped daughter of the President of the United States; was she kidnapped because of who she is, or as part of white slavery ring? Is she dead or alive? To find out the answers, Kilmer puts on disguises, engages in elaborate ruses, and kills ruthlessly--only to discover that he himself may be the one being fooled. Mamet pushes his macho/cryptic dialogue into laughably bad territory and some plot twists seriously test one's suspension of disbelief, but that's part of the game; like any con artist, Mamet knows how to hook you and reel you in, no matter how absurd things get. Also featuring Derek Luke, William H. Macy, and Ed O'Neill. --Bret Fetzer
Spartan is a terrific piece of film. If you're expecting the typical Hollywood thriller with gunfights and car chases punctuated by moments of pseudo-introspective character study then you'll be disappointed.
The pace of the film itself is a reflection of the character's psychological momentum. There are no peaks and troughs but a methodical and relentless series of events and actions. If you find yourself absorbed in the story as I was then, by the end, you'd be exhausted to see how far the events have taken you. As with the protagonist, the story does not look back for a moment - There isn't a single moment where the character reflects on his life or even his past - there is no backstory to tell.
Could have been so much better!
Spartan was a big disappointment, though I should have known something was wrong when none of the copies at the video club had been rented out (...and here I was thinking myself lucky!).
Val Kilmer does a lousy job of portraying a secret service agent on a mission to rescue the president's daughter from slavers.
The potential for a good movie was definitely there, but the surprisingly poor acting/casting and the full of holes plot prevented it from becoming anything more than a flop. As other reviewers have pointed out, what were the director and producer thinking? But more importantly, what was Val Kilmer thinking? Was he so desperate for a role that he didn't object to this travesty?
Do not expect anything like Top Gun, Willow, or the Saint here.
As for the connection with glorious Sparta (title) it is rather an unfortunate parallel bordering on ludicrous.
Overall, both Val Kilmer as well as the rest of the "cast" do a rather poor job of trying to cover up for the mediocre plot; wait `til Spartan is shown on TV.
Post 911 Thriller goes No Holds Barred - Highly Recommended
Spartans live by the code of soldier's honour and die hard. Scott (Val Kilmer) is a marine who doesn't wince at taking out a man's eye for not spilling the beans. As usual David Mamet's direction and screenplay leave the viewer's head spinning after the first three minutes with questions like, "how come a marine is shooting up the local police force?" Many tough as nails moments force the viewer to confront these cold case facts of a military underbelly that needs the guts to get the job done at any cost, especially when the President's daughter (implied as the President's daughter but never officially stated by the movie) has been kidnapped by a Middle Eastern prostitution ring that does not know what it has done. Queue various international espionage scenes including some cinematography work in Dubai and mix it with homeland security conspiracy and you have got yourself a drama that plants itself right on in there along side classics like "Marathon Man" and "3 Days of the Condor" and is not a distant cry from Clancy movies like "Clear and Present Danger".
As a special ops squad leader, Scott does not plan missions; he executes them, with an iron fist conviction that expects complete obedience from his subordinates. In one scene he takes an old age pensioner madam and places her in a chokehold to get the information out of her. Knowing that the girl will be killed when the abductors figure out what they have, it is a race against the clock. Scott dawns a detective mind that is not afraid to whip out a blade when the going gets tough. A double cross sees Scott eventually planning his own mission in order to do the right thing. There is plenty of thinking, plot twists and characters to make it deeper than most thrillers, with still lots to do. This is ace entertainment through and through. If you like any of the movies mentioned in this review and know who Mamet is and appreciate Kilmer in comeback mode - then what are you waiting for? This could well be one of the best DVDs you could hook up with in 2005. It is certainly the best post 911 thriller that does a good spin on homeland security. Check it out.
Collateral offers a change of pace for Tom Cruise as a ruthless contract killer, but that's just one of many reasons to recommend this well-crafted thriller. It's from Michael Mann, after all, and the director's stellar track record with crime thrillers (Thief, Manhunter, and especially Heat) guarantees a rich combination of intelligent plotting, well-drawn characters, and escalating tension, beginning here when icy hit-man Vincent (Cruise) recruits cab driver Max (Jamie Foxx) to drive him through a nocturnal tour of Los Angeles, during which he will execute five people in a 10-hour spree. While Stuart Beattie's screenplay deftly combines intimate character study with raw bursts of action (in keeping with Mann's directorial trademark), Foxx does the best work... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Tom Cruise - Jamie Foxx - Jada Pinkett Smith - Mark Ruffalo Director(s): Michael Mann DVD Release Date: Released the 14 December 2004 Usually ships in 24 hours
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The Manchurian Candidate, a classic of paranoid cinema from the 1960s, gets a cunning update, rife with hot-topic references to corporate war profiteering and electronic voting machines. Major Ben Marco (Denzel Washington, Training Day) has been haunted by nightmares ever since a firefight during the first Gulf War--a battle in which he believes he was saved by the heroism of Sgt. Raymond Shaw (Liev Schreiber, Kate & Leopold). But Marco's nightmares suggest otherwise and drive him to investigate what happened, which may threaten Shaw's candidacy for vice-president. Meryl Streep plays Shaw's mother, a senior senator who manipulates everyone around her with an iron will and a sharp tongue. The Manchurian Candidate loses steam towards the end, but up until then... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Denzel Washington - Liev Schreiber - Kimberly Elise - Meryl Streep Director(s): Jonathan Demme DVD Release Date: Released the 21 December 2004 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Brutal and breathtaking, Sin City is Robert Rodriguez's stunningly realized vision of Frank Miller's pulpy comic books. In the first of three separate but loosely related stories, Marv (Mickey Rourke in heavy makeup) tries to track down the killers of a woman who ended up dead in his bed. In the second story, Dwight's (Clive Owen) attempt to defend a woman from a brutal abuser goes horribly wrong, and threatens to destroy the uneasy truce among the police, the mob, and the women of Old Town. Finally, an aging cop on his last day on the job (Bruce Willis) rescues a young girl from a kidnapper, but is himself thrown in jail. Years later, he has a chance to save her again.
More Info about this DVD DVD Release Date: Released the 16 August 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Action buffs will have a fine time with the spray of bullets, shattering glass, and pyrotechnic silliness that makes up the bulk of Assault on Precinct 13. Updated from the little-known cops-and-robbers classic John Carpenter made in 1976 (two years before he made his name with Halloween), this high-concept thriller is mostly a lowbrow kill-fest, and is very happy with itself for being so efficient in both categories. A decrepit police station on its last night before retirement--New Year's Eve, no less--plays unexpected home to a gang of criminals who become snowbound in the basement lockup. Another mysterious gang of people who stealthily gather in the blizzard outside want one of the particularly nasty criminals (Laurence Fishburne) dead, and they'll take the rest of the... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Laurence Fishburne - Ethan Hawke Director(s): Jean-François Richet DVD Release Date: Released the 10 May 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Just when you think it's getting silly, Cellular serves up another tantalizing twist. In the time-honored tradition of Sorry, Wrong Number and Wait Until Dark, Kim Basinger is well-cast as a resourceful damsel-in-distress who thwarts her kidnappers by connecting with a n'er-do-well cell-phone user (Chris Evans, later seen in The Fantastic Four) who races against time to rescue her from afar. One good cop (William H. Macy) assembles clues to uncover conspiracy, while first-time writer Chris Morgan and pulp-movie master Larry Cohen (who conceived the plot, similar to his own Phone Booth screenplay) serve up a consistently satisfying string of high-tension surprises. Jason Statham continues to prove his rising-star status as the film's tenacious villain,... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Kim Basinger Director(s): David R. Ellis DVD Release Date: Released the 18 January 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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