Spartan

Time for another brief film review. I saw Spartan last night. I liked it, as it was typical David Mamet fare, that being double cross after double cross and shady characters cropping up and disappearing. If you've seen The Spanish Prisoner or Heist then you'll get the idea.

Like most folk I'm not a big fan of Val Kilmer, but I found him to be bearable in this. Jo, on the other hand wasn't so keen. The point she made, that I had to agree with, was that some of the dialogue was pretty bad. What makes that odd is that Mamet is a heavyweight in the theatre and stuff like the Pulitzer Prize winning Glengarry Glen Ross is what great dialogue writing is all about. But Spartan really didn't have any of that.

Grace: Nice knife.
Scott: Yeah. Got it off an East German fella.
Grace: He give it to ya for a gift?
Scott: No. As I recall, he was... rather reluctant to part with it.

David Mamet writes an occasional column for The Guardian and I do try to read it, but generally, a paragraph or two in, I'm lost and give up. I dunno if that says more about him or me.

The gunshots were loud enough to make Jo jump a good couple of inches in her seat and there were a nice couple of surprise moments. I have to enjoy any film that features a serious performance from This man.