Customer Reviews:
Let down by it's lack of pace and building of character........2004-12-07
This movie is a tragic case of a wannabe war movie. The film had a lot going for it. There are many poignant scenes and many quality concepts but the film just fails to deliver when it has competition with the likes of Platoon and Apocalypse Now. The movie does a have a touching ending but simply fails to deliver any real punch. Unless you are a true fan of the war film it is probably best to stay away.
A tragic prelude to American involvement in the Vietnam War.......2004-07-21
"Go Tell the Spartans" was the best film released in 1978 about the Vietnam War, which was the same year as both "Coming Home" and "The Deer Hunter." This is because those other films were less about the actual war than they were about relationships and the code of the warrior.
Based on Daniel Ford's novel "Incident at Muc Wa," the strength of this film is Wendell Mayes" brilliant script, which was nominated for a SAG Award. The film features one of Burt Lancaster's best performances as Major Asa Barker, a military adviser who knows in 1964 there is no light at the end of the tunnel. Lancaster heads a group of American military advisors in the time before Johnson made the massive commitment of troops to the war, who see the parallels between what is about to happen and the downfall of the French a decade earlier, and who know there is nothing they can do to stop their country from making a terrible mistake.
Obviously our reading of this film is colored by what we already knew in 1978 and what we take for granted now: the Vietnam War was a fiasco of epic proportions. Craig Wasson has the other main role as Corporal Courcey while other recognizable members in the cast are Marc Singer as Captain Olivetti, David Clennon as Lt. Finley Wattsberg, Dolph Sweet as General Harnitz and Clyde Kusatsu as Colonel Minh. Oh, and I have to make special mention of Dennis Howard, who plays Corporal Abraham Lincoln.
Ultimately, "Go Tell The Spartans" does not portray what it was like for grunts during the Vietnam War--you can watch "Platoon" or even "Forrest Gump" to get a much better idea of that experience than you will here--but this film does deal with the greater tragedy of the war than any other film I have seen, even if it takes place before we really got involved waist deep in the Big Muddy.
Fighting endemic corruption more than the enemy ..........2003-12-15
Adapted from Daniel Ford's novel 'Incident at Muc-Wa,' GO TELL THE SPARTANS is a fairly low-key morality tale set in 1964 (the iconic M-16 assault-rifle had not been introduced in South-east Asia yet), before the USA's main era of active military embroilment in Vietnam (1965-71). Major Asa Barker (Burt Lancaster) is a cynical veteran soldier sent as part of the US Mission's task to equip and train the Army of the Republic of (South) Vietnam (ARVN, pronounced 'Arvin' - a South-Vietnamese soldier was invariably termed 'Marvin the Arvin'). He is beset with doubts about his mission and its value: of the ARVN's ability to combat the Viet-Cong, as well as of the Republic's willingness to fight the growing Communist threat. The title refers to the following: most of the film's action takes place near a French military cemetery, above which is the inscription (in French) "Oh stranger, go tell the Spartans that we lie here, obedient to their word" - Simonides' epitaph to Leonidas' 300 Spartans who held-off the enormous Persian host at Thermopylae (480 BC).
A comprehensive deconstruction of the causes of the Vietnam War and the USA's involvement in it is more the province of serious academic study and Government-commissioned report-writing. And there have been many, very many of these since 1975. But perhaps a few key points might suffice to the casual reader and viewer of Vietnam War films.
First and foremost, the Republic of South-Vietnam was never a unified country, as the West would define 'a unified country.' As with most post-colonial nations, their national boundaries were an administrative technicality imposed on the region(s) by the former colonial powers, in Vietnam's case France. Ethnic divisions were uniform. The majority Viets stuck to the coastal lowlands and some of the river valleys, along with the sizeable Cham and Khmer minorities throughout the south. Then there were many ethnic minorities, collectively termed Montagnards (mountain peoples) by the French - Bru, Katu, Sedang, Bahnar, Jarai, Rhade, Muong, Stieng, etc. - and ne'er the twain did meet. The educated (Bhuddist and Catholicized) Viets were contemptuous of the savage Montagnards, and the (Bhuddist and anamist) Montagnards hated the arrogant and cruel Viets. The ruling Viets were insensitive to the Montagnards, either driving them into the arms of the Viet-Cong or turning them into very willing recruits of the US Special Forces training programmes. Regular ARVN and Montagnard 'Ruff-Puffs' (RF/PF = Regional Forces/Popular Forces organized and equipped by US Special Forces for regional/local self-defence) rarely ever co-operated in military operations.
The 'educated' and semi-Westernized Viets were The Problem. Top of the hierarchy (Roman Catholics all) was the French-installed but weak-willed and self-seeking 'Emperor' Bao Dai, until toppled in a brazenly rigged referendum by his premier, Ngo Dinh Diem in 1955. From then on President Diem and his cronies (Diem appointed his brothers to key government positions; his brother Ngo Dinh Nhu's wife, Madame Nhu, was South-Vietnam's 'First Lady') became increasingly autocratic - alienating further both Montagnards and Bhuddist Viets alike. Following open taunts from Madame Nhu and heavy-handed police actions against Bhuddist demonstrators (who felt that Catholic Diem's policies were increasingly discriminating against Bhuddist traditions), young Bhuddist bonzes (priests), in accordance with an ancient tradition, took to publicly dousing themselves in petrol and burning themselves to death whilst their co-religionists prevented fire-engines or ambulances from approaching. Such images caught by Western television crews were genuinely horrifying.
Meanwhile, the ARVN was notionally built-up with American arms and equipment by the US Mission (military advisors, later on MACV), but in the field showed a remarkable lack of aggression. In an action at Ap Bac (Plain of Reeds, NW of Saigon, 2 January, 1963) a numerically superior ARVN regiment, with ample air and artillery support, was ignominiously repulsed by a Viet Cong battalion of ca. 400 men. By 1 November, 1963 even senior ARVN generals were fed-up with Diem's autocracy, which was by then also alienating American aid, and instigated a coup (although the CIA may have aided the ARVN generals, the Kennedy administration opted for 'benign non-involvement'); Diem and Nhu 'died mysterously' during arrest the following day.
This got rid of autocracy but not of corruption. This was so endemic throughout the social strata - military and civil - of the Viets that it was incomprehensible to the Americans. The French belatedly understood it, but the Americans never did. Examples: ARVN officers above the rank of captain were reluctant to take part in field operations, condidering it beneath their dignity and status; junior ARVN officers receiving the ration of rice or other foodstuffs and/or ammunition for their troops, would often sell it, at public auction, to the highest bidder - which often included the Viet-Cong.
And another example is the key moment of GO TELL THE SPARTANS. Major Barker realizes that the only way to get the South Vietnamese provincial officer to use his artillery shells is to bribe the man to do so ... whilst being aware that even after accepting the bribe, the provincial officer still might not actually fire his artillery in support of Barker's military action, preferring to save the shells, perhaps for sale to the highest bidder later ... It was this basic but fundamental appreciation of South Vietnam's situation, as submitted in several fact-finding mission reports (having to cajole, bribe, or withhold suplies/subsidies from Viet civil and military officials alike to actually Get Things Done), that prompted the larger US military involvement in 1965. All that was needed was some kind of 'provocation.' The Tonkin Incident in August 1964 provided it.
And the rest became an unfortunate chapter in America's history.
Customer Reviews:
I have seen the sign.......2006-01-18
The president’s daughter is stolen and it requires all the US secret resources to find and bring her back before the people that did the abduction know who she is.
Looks like it is too late so everything will be called off. No wait Curtis (Derek Luke) has seen the sign. What does this mean? A movie that was well done. Lots of action, good acting, and emotion.
Yes this is a formula movie and the theme is older the hills. But that is why we watch these movies. We suspect who the good buys and bad guys are but never know until they turn on us.
And is it my imagination or is Val Kilmer getting better?
A twisted kidnapping tale courtesy of David Mamet.......2004-08-21
I wish I had known that "Spartan" was written and directed by David Mamet before I started watching it because then I would have warmed up to the movie a lot more quickly. Doing so was a problem for me because this film pushed a couple of my buttons. First, it involves the kidnapping of the president's daughter. My complain is not that this has been happening a lot (e.g., "The West Wing"), but that doing these stories at a time when the sitting president has daughters and there are ample reasons for terrorists to make them targets might be tempting fate too much. Second, it also touches on the idea of Secret Service incompetence and culpability in political shenanigans. I get the feeling that the Secret Service in most Hollywood movies has replaced what would have been psychotic Vietnam vets a generation ago (and sadistic Nazis the generation before that). I just tend to find such portrayals rather insulting to those people whose job is to throw themselves in front of bullets.
But even given the hole that "Spartan" started out with in my eyes this is quite a compelling film. With Mamet things are never simple and the chief attraction here is how the film's hero, an agent named Scott (Val Kilmer), tries to catch up with the events that are unraveling at warp speed involving the president's daughter (Kristen Bell), and unraveling is most decidedly the operative word in this story. I probably should have started counting the conventions of this genre that Mamet is playing with in "Spartan," especially with regards to the supporting roles of Curtis (Derek Luke), Jackie Black (Tia Texada), and Stoddard (William H. Macy), who come and go in the most interesting ways. Scott is an interesting character because he is almost a sanctioned loose cannon, who will put on his thinking cap and do whatever it takes to get the job done (even if it means doing whatever it takes to get the job done).
Of course as much fun as a David Mamet plot is there is also the distinctive dialogue that he gives his characters to speak. If you are hoping for lots of exposition to explain what is going on, then you are in the wrong movie. Add to that the fact that just because somebody says something does not mean they mean it. There is a lot of guesswork involved here, not just for the characters but also the audience, because of what we see and here. But that is the road we expect to travel when Mamet is out guide and in that regard "Spartan" does not disappoint. It might prove too cerebral for most aficionados of the action genre, but then there are plenty of such brain dead films out there that we should be allowed to enjoy this one in peace.
Anticlimactic.......2004-08-09
The second half of any film is supposed to be better than the first. Hollywood got this one wrong.
Val Kilmer plays Scott, a Secret Service operative assigned to do the dirty tasks that would otherwise not be countenanced by squeamish bleeding hearts. For instance, in order to get crucial information from a suspect, Scott is not above breaking the scumbag's arm. In the defense of Mom, flag and apple pie, a Hard Man is good to find.
In SPARTAN, a VIP's daughter, Laura (Kristen Bell), is kidnapped from her college dorm after her Secret Service protection is temporarily withdrawn to supplement that of Ol' Dad's when he comes to town to visit his mistress during a re-election campaign. The script never specifically says so, but the viewer presumes we're talking about the President here. In any case, the girl is apparently destined to be sent to a country bordering the Arabian Gulf where she'll become the sex slave of a rich sheikh. At this point in the plot, the kidnappers don't know whom they've got, and Scott must retrieve Laura before the story breaks in the press.
Mind you, Kilmer gives a taut performance as the Service's Rambo. And the supporting cast includes the ever-watchable William H. Macy as the VIP's political Machiavelli, and Ed O'Neill as the agent in charge of the rescue. (I can never see O'Neill without hearing MARRIED WITH CHILDREN's Peggy whine "Aaaa-lll!") However, when the audience finally meets Laura, she turns out to be such an unappealing brat that the viewer perhaps wonders why all the bother. Finally, Laura's deliverance from the Middle East is by such a successful, albeit fortuitously unexpected, route, that one questions why Scott didn't plan something similar - such as marching into the local BBC office with the girl in tow - from the very beginning instead of trying to be cute about it.
The title "Spartan" makes reference to the proud habit of the ancient Greek city-state of Sparta, when asked by a neighboring city to send military aid, of sending just one of its super warriors to get the job done.
Customer Reviews:
Brigham City.......2008-01-09
This is a great film with a lot of suspence, there is a very moving ending. It is a great watch!
Great.......2004-07-18
When murders start to happen in brigham city no one is prepared ,a small village where possibly no one has ever been murdered but a serial killer is on the loose and who could it be ?!?
I thought this film was great it had suspence all the way through and was toching in a way you dont expect.
Customer Reviews:
great canadian drama.......2007-07-30
a drama that is different from the usual action dramas, and good guest stars including bret hart with a unpredictable ending and different action which is good to see shame it didn't go more than one season, great all the same
UK DVD:
- Herbie Hancock: Possibilities [2006] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
- Heyday Of British Steam
- Hilary and Jackie [1999] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
- Hitler in his Own Words
- Hoover Street Revival [2003]
- Hummel - Mobile Heavy Artillery
- Hummel - Mobile Heavy Artillery
- Indigo Girls: Watershed/10 Years of Underground Video [1995] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
- In Like Flint / Our Man Flint [1966]
- Instant Classic - The Best of Christian Cage [2007]
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