Spartan: A More Intriguing Secret Agent

The review below was published originally on cinekklesia on May 25, 2005.

Paul Marchbanks, cinekklesia's founder, coordinator, and champion, is also a pusher. A movie pusher. He gets you started on one film until you're hooked to the goodies that he's got stashed in his special DVD case at home. (Unlike most pushers, however, Paul doesn't charge for the product.) A couple of years ago, he started pushing entire seasons of 24 and Alias on his friends. What? Paul, the quiet, erudite man of literature trading in televised spy shows? It was a surprising turn of events, but I have to admit that the shows were entertaining. Paul was a crafty, convincing dealer.

However, after watching several seasons of both shows, I am now disaffected. It's not Paul's fault, of course. He's just a middle-man; he's not ultimately responsible for the quality of the product. Having watched David Mamet's Spartan, I now realize that neither 24 nor Alias do justice to the secret agent motif (not even close).

The problem with 24 is not the fact that the main agent, Jack Bauer (Kiefer Sutherland), is the jack-of-all-trades spy, who unrealistically performs any and every task with the utmost precision and heroism (while pulling the all-nighter, no less). The show's main fault lies in its continual devolution to heavy-handed statist propaganda, defending torture in the name of national security. The show's writing always has been lackluster at its very best, but its mediocrity has been tarnished by its championing of an essentially authoritarian vision of the political life.

Alias isn't so heavy-handed in its statist propaganda; rather, it's naive and annoying. There are too many "beautiful people" on the cast, who can travel around the world at a moment's notice, complete a dangerous mission, and then return to the office the following day, looking sharp and rested. (At least 24 makes its protagonist look sweaty and exhausted.) In addition, two of the main characters, Sydney Bristow (Jennifer Garner) and Marcus Dixon (Carl Lumbly) express a hypocritical self-righteousness that makes my stomach churn. In every episode, they blather about the evils of the supposed "bad guy," Arvin Sloan (Ron Rifkin), without recognizing that their entire profession revolves around deceit. Finally, while 24 wallows gleefully in torture, the producers of Alias show their agents bending over backwards to avoid killing "innocents"; thus, while 24 is immoral, Alias pushes a stupid and naive view of covert ops: "our" agents are "good" — they wouldn't kill anyone unnecessarily, right?

Spartan provides an intelligent and nuanced antidote to the aforementioned drivel. Val Kilmer plays Scott, a secret agent who has a supposedly simple mission: rescue a politician's daughter, who was kidnapped from her home. The running theory is that she was taken by a gang of human traffickers, who plan to ship her to Dubai in order to sell her as a prostitute; the theory also supposes that the gang has no idea who they're holding.

During the mission, Scott takes on a protégé, Curtis (Derek Luke), and teaches him how to remain solely focused on the mission. Scott breaks arms, shoots innocents — does whatever it takes to get the job done. Unlike the agents in Alias, Scott doesn't try to save civilians' lives — what's a life when you've got a job to do? Contra 24's Jack Bauer, it doesn't appear that Scott has any nationalist or utilitarian notions of the "greater good"; like a machine (though more nuanced than, say, the Terminator), his only concern is with the mission. As the movie itself notes: he's a doer, not a planner.

Of course, David Mamet being David Mamet, Spartan has a twist. While in Dubai, Scott and his team see a news report that the politician's daughter was found off the coast of Martha's Vineyard. The DNA tests prove that it's her, and apparently, her body washed ashore with that of her professor (naughty). Yet, we later discover that maybe "her body" really wasn't her body after all....

You'll have to rent Spartan yourself to see how the rest of the plot unfolds. However, for our purpose here, I should note that Mamet portrays a very slight, nuanced shift in Scott's persona. When the latter realizes that things aren't as they seem, he goes "rogue," conducting his own investigation, seeking the truth, and risking his life in the process. Mamet isn't heavy-handed with this portrayal; he doesn't show Scott renouncing his chosen career or questioning his government. Rather, we see him listening just a little bit to his conscience and exploring where that takes him. Such a slight, yet meaningful, shift in his character's perspective (all within two hours) is more than the emotionally immature Sydney Bristow can muster in several seasons.

One final note: Mamet is smart to avoid linking his film with current events. While 24 and Alias are full of references to contemporary terrorism, the Patriot Act, etc., Spartan relies on timeless themes: crime, conspiracy, corrupt politicians. Thus, Mamet makes both a non-political film and a highly political film; by not explicitly tying his work to the here-and-now, Mamet makes a broader statement that would have resonated twenty years ago and could resonate easily twenty years hence. His timeless advice? Listen to your conscience and don't forget that politicians, as a class, are morally bankrupt!