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''Spartan'' is a 2004 American
action thriller Action film is a film genre in which the protagonist is thrust into a series of events that typically involve violence and physical feats. The genre tends to feature a mostly resourceful hero struggling against incredible odds, which include lif ...
film written and directed by
David Mamet David Alan Mamet (; born November 30, 1947) is an American playwright, filmmaker, and author. He won a Pulitzer Prize and received Tony nominations for his plays ''Glengarry Glen Ross'' (1984) and '' Speed-the-Plow'' (1988). He first gained cri ...
and starring Val Kilmer, Derek Luke, Tia Texada, Ed O'Neill,
William H. Macy William Hall Macy Jr. (born March 13, 1950) is an American actor. His film career has been built on appearances in small, independent films, though he has also appeared in mainstream films. Some of his best known starring roles include those i ...
, and
Kristen Bell Kristen Anne Bell (born July 18, 1980) is an American actress. Beginning her acting career by starring in stage productions while attending the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University, she made her Broadway stage debut as Becky That ...
. It was released in the United States and Canada on March 12, 2004.


Plot

Robert Scott is a former
United States Marine Corps The United States Marine Corps (USMC), also referred to as the United States Marines, is the maritime land force service branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for conducting expeditionary and amphibious operations through c ...
Force Recon Force Reconnaissance (FORECON) is one of the United States Marine Corps' special operations capable forces (SOC) which supplies military intelligence to the command element of the Marine Air-Ground Task Force (MAGTF). Force Reconnaissance compa ...
master gunnery sergeant, acting as a selection cadre member for
Delta Force The 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment–Delta (1st SFOD-D), referred to variously as Delta Force, Combat Applications Group (CAG), Army Compartmented Elements (ACE), "The Unit", or within Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), Task Fo ...
. While observing an exercise designed to evaluate Delta candidates, Scott meets a recruit, Curtis, as well as Sergeant Jacqueline Black, a knife fighting instructor. Scott is drawn into a clandestine operation to find Laura Newton, the
President President most commonly refers to: *President (corporate title) * President (education), a leader of a college or university * President (government title) President may also refer to: Automobiles * Nissan President, a 1966–2010 Japanese ...
's daughter, who is missing. He and Curtis go first to the beach house of one of Laura's professors, with whom she is said to have a relationship. They find neither person there but find two unidentified men who react aggressively, leading Curtis, who has taken up position outside with a sniper's rifle, to shoot one of the men. Scott quickly kills the other. Another lead takes them to a bar where girls are recruited as prostitutes, and Scott's team follows a middleman from the bar to a brothel that funnels some of these girls to an international sex slavery ring. The madam gives them a contact number leading to a pay phone. Calls placed to the pay phone are traced to Tariq Asani, a Lebanese national currently in federal prison. They plan to intercept Asani during a prisoner transport for medical treatment and gain information from him about the sex trafficking operation. When the car carrying Asani and another prisoner stops en route to its destination, Scott shows up and appears to kill the transport guard, then kills the other prisoner who was on death row. He spares Asani when Asani says he can get them on a plane out of the country that night and confirms the sex slavery ring is based in
Dubai Dubai (, ; ar, wikt:دبي, دبي, translit=Dubayy, , ) is the List of cities in the United Arab Emirates#Major cities, most populous city in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and the capital of the Emirate of Dubai, the most populated of the 7 ...
. Scott stops at a convenience store to relay the information to the team. Curtis provides him with more ammunition, but Asani, waiting in the car, happens to spot the badge of another agent talking with Curtis and opens fire. Curtis is wounded and Scott has to kill Asani. As the team prepares an assault in Dubai, a news broadcast reports that Laura and her college professor were discovered drowned while sailing off the coast of
Martha's Vineyard Martha's Vineyard, often simply called the Vineyard, is an island in the Northeastern United States, located south of Cape Cod in Dukes County, Massachusetts, known for being a popular, affluent summer colony. Martha's Vineyard includes the ...
. The rescue operation is called off. Scott returns home, convinced there is no more to be done, but Curtis tracks him down and insists that Laura is alive. He shows Scott an earring that was caught in his sniper's mat from the beach house identical to the earrings Laura is wearing in a news photograph. When they return to the beach house to investigate, Curtis is killed by a sniper positioned on a nearby boat. Scott evades the sniper and when he finds Laura's unique sign on a window in the beach house indicating she was there, he realizes that she may not be dead. He takes his pager and phone apart and finds a tracking device. He tries to contact Laura's mother, who is touring a rehab facility, but he is intercepted by a female
Secret Service A secret service is a government agency, intelligence agency, or the activities of a government agency, concerned with the gathering of intelligence data. The tasks and powers of a secret service can vary greatly from one country to another. Fo ...
agent assigned to guard the
First Family First Family is an unofficial title for the family of a republic's head of state. A first family usually consists of: the head of state, the first spouse and their children. Related terms The term ''second family'' is often used to refer to ...
. When he shows the agent the earring, the agent, who knows Laura well, explains that for years the President has used visits to his daughter as a cover for extramarital affairs, and that he pulled Laura's Secret Service detail to use as extra protection for himself during the latest trip, leaving her vulnerable to the members of the sex trafficking ring. Scott enlists Sergeant Black to help him rescue the girl from Dubai and turns to Avi, a former Israeli operative. Avi agrees to get him into Dubai and smuggle Laura out concealed in a cargo container at the airport, obtaining weapons for him and support from a local man known as Jones. Jones is killed during the rescue and Scott flees with Laura to a safe house, where he persuades her that although he is alone, he is acting under orders. Correctly guessing that he is really acting on his own, Laura says that King
Leonidas Leonidas I (; grc-gre, Λεωνίδας; died 19 September 480 BC) was a List of kings of Sparta#Heraclids, king of the Greek city-state of Sparta, and the 17th of the List of kings of Sparta#Agiad dynasty, Agiad line, a dynasty which claimed d ...
of
Sparta Sparta ( Doric Greek: Σπάρτα, ''Spártā''; Attic Greek: Σπάρτη, ''Spártē'') was a prominent city-state in Laconia, in ancient Greece. In antiquity, the city-state was known as Lacedaemon (, ), while the name Sparta referr ...
would respond to requests for help from neighboring kingdoms by sending one man, and decides to trust him. When he takes Laura to the airport to seal her in the cargo container, Scott discovers he is being tracked when he finds a transmitter hidden in his knife. He rushes her out of the container just as his old team arrives to apprehend them. Scott is shot and Laura is captured. Her captor reveals herself as Sgt. Black, who shows her the earring and photos from the Secret Service agent, convincing Laura to stop struggling. A Swedish news crew witnesses the struggle as they are about to board their own plane nearby, and recognize Laura. Black is shot, and a hysterical Laura is hustled to safety aboard the journalists' plane. Scott finds the injured Black, who asks if Laura is now safe, which Scott confirms. Later, on a London city street, a stubbled Scott is shown watching an evening news broadcast regarding Laura's return on a television in a shop window. The government spins the story of Laura's kidnapping as an opportunity for the President to take action to end the trafficking of American girls as sex slaves. A British man watching alongside Scott says, "Time to go home," and walks away. Scott watches him leave and says, "Lucky man." Scott is then seen walking off into Piccadilly Circus.


Cast

* Val Kilmer as Master Gunnery Sergeant John / Bobby Scott * Derek Luke as Curtis * Tia Texada as Sergeant Jacqueline Black *
Kristen Bell Kristen Anne Bell (born July 18, 1980) is an American actress. Beginning her acting career by starring in stage productions while attending the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University, she made her Broadway stage debut as Becky That ...
as First Daughter Laura Newton *
Lionel Mark Smith Lionel Mark Smith (February 5, 1946 – February 13, 2008) was an American actor. He appeared in several movies including ''Galaxina'', '' Homicide'', '' Edmond'', '' State and Main'', ''Spartan'', and '' Treasure of Pirate's Point''. He also a ...
as Colonel Blane * Johnny Messner as Sergeant Grace * Ed O'Neill as Robert Burch *
William H. Macy William Hall Macy Jr. (born March 13, 1950) is an American actor. His film career has been built on appearances in small, independent films, though he has also appeared in mainstream films. Some of his best known starring roles include those i ...
as Stoddard *
Saïd Taghmaoui Saïd Taghmaoui (born 19 July 1973) is a French-American actor and screenwriter. One of his major screen roles was that of Saïd in the 1995 French film ''La Haine'', directed by Mathieu Kassovitz. Taghmaoui has also appeared in a number of Eng ...
as Tariq Asani *
Clark Gregg Robert Clark Gregg Jr. (born April 2, 1962) is an American actor, director, and screenwriter. He is best known for playing Agent Phil Coulson in the Marvel Cinematic Universe films ''Iron Man'' (2008), '' Iron Man 2'' (2010), ''Thor'' (2011), ' ...
as Agent Miller *
Natalia Nogulich Natalia Nogulich is an American film- and television actress and author. Nogulich was born Natalija Nogulich in Chicago, Illinois, of Serbian descent. Her best-known appearances have been on '' Star Trek: The Next Generation'' and ''Star Tre ...
as Nadya Tellich *
Moshe Ivgy Moshe Ivgy ( he, משה איבגי; born 29 November 1953) is an Israeli actor and director. Biography Moshe Ivgy was born in Casablanca, Morocco, to a Moroccan Jewish family. He was married to actress Irit Sheleg. Their daughter Dana Ivgy is ...
as Avi *
Kick Gurry Christopher "Kick" Gurry (born 25 May 1978) is an Australian actor. Gurry was born in Melbourne, Australia. He got his nickname when his brother could not say Christopher so he said "Kicker". When he got into high school, he shortened it to "K ...
as Agent Jones *
Geoff Pierson Geoff Pierson is an American actor known for his starring television roles on ''Dexter'', ''Unhappily Ever After'', ''Grace Under Fire'', '' 24'', '' Ryan's Hope'', and '' Designated Survivor''. He has guest-starred in dozens of other TV shows. ...
as Agent Pearce *
Vincent Guastaferro Vincent Guastaferro (born April 6, 1950) is an American film, stage and television actor. He is known for playing the recurring role of Sgt. Vincent Agostini in the American police procedural television series '' NYPD Blue''. Born in Jersey ...
as Agent Naylor * Andy Davoli as Jerry Zimmer * Aaron Stanford as Michael Blake * Margot Farley as Young Prostitute


Production

The
Dubai Dubai (, ; ar, wikt:دبي, دبي, translit=Dubayy, , ) is the List of cities in the United Arab Emirates#Major cities, most populous city in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and the capital of the Emirate of Dubai, the most populated of the 7 ...
locales were actually filmed in
Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world ...
.
Eric L. Haney Eric L. Haney (born August 22, 1952) is a retired member of the United States Army counterterrorist unit, the 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment-Delta (1SFOD-D), more commonly known as Delta Force. In recent years he has been writing o ...
, a retired U.S. Army Command Sergeant Major who operated in
Delta Force The 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment–Delta (1st SFOD-D), referred to variously as Delta Force, Combat Applications Group (CAG), Army Compartmented Elements (ACE), "The Unit", or within Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), Task Fo ...
, was the technical advisor, and briefly appears. After ''Spartan'', he and Mamet created ''
The Unit ''The Unit'' is an American action-drama television series created by David Mamet that aired on CBS from March 7, 2006, to May 10, 2009 with the total of four seasons and 69 episodes. The series focuses on a top-secret military unit modeled ...
'' television series about an Army unit mirroring Delta Force.
Alexandra Kerry Alexandra Forbes Kerry (born September 5, 1973) is an American actress and filmmaker. She is a partner at Locomotive Films and co-founder of Fictional Pictures, a film production company based in New York and Los Angeles. She is married to conte ...
, daughter of then-
U.S. Senator The United States Senate is the upper chamber of the United States Congress, with the House of Representatives being the lower chamber. Together they compose the national bicameral legislature of the United States. The composition and power ...
(later Secretary of State)
John Kerry John Forbes Kerry (born December 11, 1943) is an American attorney, politician and diplomat who currently serves as the first United States special presidential envoy for climate. A member of the Forbes family and the Democratic Party (Unite ...
, is a bartender in the film. David Mamet's
rabbi A rabbi () is a spiritual leader or religious teacher in Judaism. One becomes a rabbi by being ordained by another rabbi – known as ''semikha'' – following a course of study of Jewish history and texts such as the Talmud. The basic form of ...
, Mordechai Finley, appears as one of the training cadre. Political operative Ed Skyler has praised the film for its realism regarding the inner workings of the Washington elite. The Scott character says the line, "One riot, one Ranger." Mamet previously used that dialogue in ''
House of Games ''House of Games'' is a 1987 American neo-noir heist thriller film directed by David Mamet, his directorial debut. He also wrote the screenplay, based on a story he co-wrote with Jonathan Katz. The film's cast includes Lindsay Crouse, Joe Man ...
'', and it has subsequently been used in ''The Unit''. The remark is said to be Texas Rangers lore. The automatic knife used in the film is "The Spartan" by Severtech and was designed for this film.


Home Media

''Spartan'' was released on video and DVD June 15, 2004.


Reception

The review-aggregation website
Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...
gives the film a score of 65% based on reviews from 134 critics, and a weighted average of 6.5 out of 10. The website's critical consensus states, "A good cast and Mamet's mastery over the written language elevate an otherwise conventional thriller." At
Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...
, another review aggregator, the film received a weighted average score of 60% based on 34 reviews, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Roger Ebert in the ''
Chicago Sun-Times The ''Chicago Sun-Times'' is a daily newspaper published in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Since 2022, it is the flagship paper of Chicago Public Media, and has the second largest circulation among Chicago newspapers, after the ''Chicago T ...
'' gave the film a four-star rating saying that "The particular pleasure of 'Spartan' is to watch the characters gradually define themselves and the plot gradually emerge like your face in a steamy mirror."
Ross Douthat Ross Gregory Douthat (born 1979) is an American political analyst, blogger, author and ''New York Times'' columnist. He was a senior editor of ''The Atlantic''. He has written on a variety of topics, including the state of Christianity in Americ ...
wrote "Here's my rule of thumb: Anytime a critic praises a director for pushing any movie—let alone a low-budget thriller—'into the abstract,' you know you've entered the realm of the lousy-but-pretentious, which is not a particularly fun place to spend a Saturday night. I promise you, folks, ''Spartan'' is bad—both in the way that only David Mamet can be bad and in a heap of others. The only thing that raises it to the level of 'interesting
pop culture Pop or POP may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Music * Pop music, a musical genre Artists * POP, a Japanese idol group now known as Gang Parade * Pop!, a UK pop group * Pop! featuring Angie Hart, an Australian band Albums * Pop (Gas al ...
artifact' is the sheer strangeness of its central conceit, which is almost bizarre enough to merit the price of the
Blockbuster Blockbuster or Block Buster may refer to: *Blockbuster (entertainment) a term coined for an extremely successful movie, from which most other uses are derived. Corporations * Blockbuster (retailer), a defunct video and game rental chain ** Bl ...
rental. I won't spoil it—but suffice to say, David Mamet thinks
Jenna Jenna is a female given name. In the English-speaking world it is a variation of Jenny, which is itself a diminutive of Jane, Janet, Jennifer and is often used as a name in its own right.Katie Martin-Doyle, ''The Treasury of Baby Names'', Worth Pre ...
and Barbara should be keeping a weather eye on their Dad." Tim Robey in ''
The Daily Telegraph ''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a national British daily broadsheet newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed across the United Kingdom and internationally. It was fo ...
'' felt the film was let down by a "botched" finale, "as though Mamet felt obliged to reproduce a standard-issue
Tom Clancy Thomas Leo Clancy Jr. (April 12, 1947 – October 1, 2013) was an American novelist. He is best known for his technically detailed espionage and military science, military-science storylines set during and after the Cold War. Seventeen of ...
climax while knowing that this wasn't the way to go."


References


External links

* * * {{David Mamet films 2004 films American political thriller films 2000s spy thriller films 2000s political thriller films 2000s English-language films Films about Delta Force Films about human trafficking Films about the United States Marine Corps Films directed by David Mamet Films produced by Art Linson Films produced by Elie Samaha Films scored by Mark Isham Films with screenplays by David Mamet Films set in Massachusetts Franchise Pictures films Warner Bros. films 2000s American films