This Week's Viewings - Spartan, Elephant, Secret Window

[Mr_Vindictive]

Been busy renting films all week.  Here are some of the better ones:

Secret Window - The story follows Mort Raney (Johnny Depp) as he lives his life alone in a cabin.  One day he is approached by a man claiming that he stole his story.  Mort obviously denies all of the accusations but the man persists, eventually leading to numerous murders.  This flick was actually pretty tense with quite a high body count and amount of violence for a PG-13 flick.  Expertly directed and written by David Koepp who wrote other great flicks like Spiderman and Stir Of Echos.  The flick is based on a Stephen King story and actually has the feel of The Dark Half.  Enough twists and turns to keep my interest peaked but nothing really new.

Elephant - Elephant marks Gus Van Sant's jump back into indie film after mainstream flicks like Good Will Hunting and the dismal Psycho remake.  Elephant follows a handful of teenagers through their seemingly normal day at school.  It eventually builds up to a school shooting.  The film is deliberately slow and beautiful.  The climatic school shooting is almost anti-climatic in nature.  It's slow and methodical and kept as kind of a side story to the rest of the film.  Don't expect a lot of dialogue throughout either.  I would estimate that only about 20 minutes of it's run time is dialogue.  This film is all about acting and story.  

Spartan - Rented Spartan last night on a whim and was pleasntly suprised.  The film follows Val Kilmer who is a secret service officer.  He is trying to find the daughter of a major politican.  The chase eventually leads to a sex slave unit that is taking girls out of America and sending them overseas to be sold.  This was actually a great movie with many twists and turns.  It was directed by the always great David Mamet (State and Main among other things) and had a nicely thick plot.  Overall a great action movie for those of us who like our action to have some brains.


Overall scores for each film:

Secret Window - 6.5/10  It just didn't have enough new elements to make it groundbreaking.

Elephant - 8/10 As I said before, this film is beautiful.  Perfect portryal of High School and the pain that goes along with it.

Spartan -  8.5/10  Great thinking man's action flick.  Numerous twists and turns with quite a unique ending.

[Ash]

I saw Spartan at the local video shop but didn't rent it.
I read the back of the box and it seemed interesting.
Gonna have to rent that one soon.

As for Secret Window, I was enthralled during the first half and then was totally let down by a big twist that didn't really seem to have the impact on me that it should have.
As always, Johnny Depp was excellent in it.
I just kept thinking that the short story by King was so much better...(I haven't read it)

[Mr_Vindictive]

Ash,

That is about the same way I felt abou the flick.  It started out decent but took an obvious and somewhat cliched turn.

[Chopper]

Yeah I thought Spartan was cool. I enjoyed the "seedy special-forces society" that is so often cheesily shown in films. I also thought it was cool how the film showed the many comparison and allusions to the ancient warrior code of ethics. Kilmer's character is essentially a modern Spartan, and the red cloak he wears is that of his secrecy and coldness towards humanity. However I felt the film was a little too talky in parts, but that is for the most part Mamet's style.

[Hugomarink]

Excellent reviews. I'm pretty much with you on "Secret Window" and "Elephant" but I'd probably give "Window" a 5 (I just thought it was really mediocre) and "Elephant" a 9 (I thought it was truly a brilliant movie, even though I can see why many people didn't like it). I haven't seen "Spartan" but will check it out based on your review. Thanks!