Spartan - Tow Jockey Five Second Review

Tough guy talk and action permeate this movie. A serviceable tale of an abduction and the effort to get the victim back. There isn't a lot that stands out as stellar but there isn't a lot that sucks either. The suspense is there but not nail biting. The action is there but it isn't something you've never seen before. Written and directed by David Mamet, the movie does have the rapid fire dialog you'd expect of him especially from the head of the hero's unit. His female characters seem not to be as fully realized as his male ones. He also gets a shot to the gnads for falling into a couple of cliche's of action movies that really annoy me. The first and foremost of these is costume changes and equipment appearing out of nowhere. They are in a helicopter in their business suits headed for a stealthy covert op that they had no time to plan for. Then the next time you see them sneaking into a compound wearing black ninja outfits and having specialized sniper rifles. The second is what I call "the temporary bullet wound" where some dude takes a shot that would kill an elephant but the next scene he's all healed up as if nothing had happened.

Netflix Status: DVD only