(Spoilerless, as difficult as that was to do.) It must be a hard life, David Mamet's, always having to wonder if the mailman is putting taps on the bills or if his dog is a midget human government spy inside a dog suit or if Rebecca Pidgeon is putting drugs in his coffee every morning. Ten films in, nearly every David Mamet movie is set up as a conspiracy battle between the dupers and the dupees, and as always, the major elements of interest in Spartan come from (a) figuring out who is a duper, who is a dupee, and who is both; (b) figuring out which side's gonna prevail in the end; and (c) watching actors try to handle Mamet's lovely convoluted dialogue. (Regarding (c), Kilmer and all the Mamet veterans -- Macy, O'Neil, Paymer, Gregg -- succeed; Texada and Luke are not so good.) As much as Spartan succeeds, it's because the film is both engolfing while it's playing and interesting to think about in retrospect (the latter not the case in Heist); as much as it fails, it's because it feels both too familiar (Ed: you'll know what Mamet script the end reminds me of) and too dispensable to hold some of the heavy subject matter discussed. Early frontrunner for my annual Actor deserving of an Award But Will Never Get One Because His or Her Role is Too Small Award1: Saïd Taghmaoui as The Inmate Who Wasn't Killed.
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1 Previous winners: Fred Willard as The "Wha' Happened?" Guy in A Mighty Wind, Robert Wilfort as The Doctor in All or Nothing (2001), and Brad Renfro as The Friend in Ghost World (2000).
oh so lovingly written by
Matthew |
i sincerely do not know what you are doing here. are you lost? were you
looking for your delicate calico cat, and did you follow her up two flights of stairs
to this room? she is not here. she was here, yes. we gave her a warm bowl of milk, we talked with her about campaign finance reform for a time, and then she bid us good day. i believe she was
going to the post office two blocks down, but i don't quite recall.
for surely you did
not find your way from prinsiana, the least traveled site on
the internet. if you did, though, perhaps you are looking for humor. perhaps you are looking for profundity. perhaps you are looking for answers.
i'm sorry, but you shall go naught-for-three.
