Critic Reviews

When he's good, Mr. Mamet is very good indeed, and Spartan stands with the best work he's done. It's fast-moving, unpredictable, and as tautly, tightly wound as thrillers get.

The patter is always fascinating, and at right angles to the action. [Mamet]'s like a magician who gets you all involved in his story about the King, the Queen and the Jack, while the whole point is that there's a rabbit in your pocket.

Until its final stumble, this intelligence thriller, starring Val Kilmer, is charged with brilliance.

Is Spartan a perfect, or even a great, movie? Probably not. But in its prickly irascibility and deeply unsettling intelligence, it makes for a very, very good one.

Using simplicity as another form of deception, Mamet lays out a hand of three-card monte for the audience to see, then tricks it into guessing falsely. In this case, it's worth getting fooled out of a little cash.

A political thriller with topical currency, Spartan delivers the goods.

Mamet being Mamet, the story has far greater repercussions than whether the kidnap victim will be returned to safety. This is a tale of grand conspiracies, formidable forces, shadow warfare; the more that is revealed, the higher the stakes become.

An entertaining foray into a world of spy guys, stakeouts and secret government machinations, Spartan teems with the kind of terse crypto-speak that is the playwright and filmmaker's stock-in-trade.

The movie worked for me both as a commentary on the electoral process and as a slightly overcooked thriller.

Don't go expecting a good time to be had. But by all means, go to revel in a movie that, for about two-thirds of its length, is Mamet at the top of his game -- intelligent, tightly crafted, densely layered.