Good , But It Is Overrated By Some

Expected more

Bad Acting and worse Bad Screenplay

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

A Secret Service agent is investigating the kidnapping of the daughter of a senior politician. His investigations uncover a human trafficking operation.Sub-par. Plot is perplexing and often simply random. David Mamet tries to be too clever for his own, and our, good. Dialogue is all over the place, and often quite hammy.Val Kilmer does his best James Bond / Mission Impossible routine, but doesn't pull it off completely. Just not overly convincing. Bizarre dialogue doesn't help. Supporting cast are good, especially Derek Luke and Ed O'Neill.

Terribly directed and written by David Mamet, the dialog, direction, and ultimately direction of "Spartan" deep-sixed a potentially interesting plot and story. Characters whip through their lines and dialog has the feel of being written by a singular voice. There's no variety in tone. Later in the runtime the dialog and story burns up in flames. By the last 20 min of runtime, I didn't care anymore and was laughing at the depth the movie had sunk. The actors involved are more talented than what this director fashioned; indeed Mamet aims for little to no emotion and the movie seems like a paranoid ramblings from a mental patient. 4/10 laughably bad.

Robert Scott (Val Kilmer) is a military consultant working on Delta Force recruits. Curtis (Derek Luke) is one of those recruits. The president's daughter Laura Newton (Kristen Bell) goes missing and Robert is brought in. He's given 2 days before news spreads to the media. He brings Curtis in to assist him and tracks her to an international sex ring. It's a murky world of secret and mystery.David Mamet tries his hand on a crime mystery action thriller. I rarely ask for more introduction but I want to know who Robert Scott was before his mysterious present day job. The murky start causes confusion about the limits of his powers or simply what is his job. The suspense is pretty good as the plot keeps it moving like a machine. Val Kilmer is functional but he lacks the star power. The tension is building up to an exciting operation in Dubai but a turn in the middle stalls the movie. Instead of ramping up the tension, the movie chugs along and chugs along. I don't understand why he doesn't go to the higher ups with the information. Some of the plot points leave me a bit puzzled. I think a more accomplished action director would have been better. Also the ending is a mess of twists that are highly questionable.

This was a military thriller about a man (Val Kilmer) who has to rescue a kidnapped lady. (Kristen Davis.) Of course, he learns that nothing is what it seems and encounters plenty of conspiracies along the way. I think it gives a decent performance and I liked the action scenes, but it kind of drags a bit. I think Val Kilmer was good in the lead, and the supporting cast was good. (Ed O'Neill, William H. Macy, Davis, etc.) It was worth it for that and the action scenes. I admit it was loaded with clichés, so you won't see too many surprises coming, but you might like it if you are into this sort of movie. I could recommend it for that.** out of ****