Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

This is a tender, generous movie that likes its characters and presents them as real people, full of flaws and strengths.

Great movie. Not sure what people expected but I found it highly entertaining.

It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

A Secret Service agent is investigating the kidnapping of the daughter of a senior politician. His investigations uncover a human trafficking operation.Sub-par. Plot is perplexing and often simply random. David Mamet tries to be too clever for his own, and our, good. Dialogue is all over the place, and often quite hammy.Val Kilmer does his best James Bond / Mission Impossible routine, but doesn't pull it off completely. Just not overly convincing. Bizarre dialogue doesn't help. Supporting cast are good, especially Derek Luke and Ed O'Neill.

Robert Scott (Val Kilmer) is a military consultant working on Delta Force recruits. Curtis (Derek Luke) is one of those recruits. The president's daughter Laura Newton (Kristen Bell) goes missing and Robert is brought in. He's given 2 days before news spreads to the media. He brings Curtis in to assist him and tracks her to an international sex ring. It's a murky world of secret and mystery.David Mamet tries his hand on a crime mystery action thriller. I rarely ask for more introduction but I want to know who Robert Scott was before his mysterious present day job. The murky start causes confusion about the limits of his powers or simply what is his job. The suspense is pretty good as the plot keeps it moving like a machine. Val Kilmer is functional but he lacks the star power. The tension is building up to an exciting operation in Dubai but a turn in the middle stalls the movie. Instead of ramping up the tension, the movie chugs along and chugs along. I don't understand why he doesn't go to the higher ups with the information. Some of the plot points leave me a bit puzzled. I think a more accomplished action director would have been better. Also the ending is a mess of twists that are highly questionable.

Director David Mamet gives us an action thriller with real storytelling instead of over-the-top CGI effects that are thrown in for gee-whiz sakes. What happens is that you concentrate on the characters and the story as it is unfolding before your eyes. This is one of the best films in recent years to really give me a 'jolt' with some of the plot twists. I'm surprised Hollywood didn't fight over this script, it is mostly original, and is lean and smart. It doesn't want to throw in some stupid love interest or a "last chance to be a hero before retiring" sub plot. Not once does your brain enter that "been there - done that" zone. The well edited dialogue draws you in like a Tom Clancy novel, giving you snapshots of characters at first, then filling in the blanks as the plot unfolds. This allows the 2nd half of the story to be plausible enough to follow it through to the exciting finish. Swear to god, it got my heart pounding once the urgency of the damsel in distress hits the main character. Val Kilmer, a government agent who plays between the lines, is no John Clark. He loses points for not having any emotion to the degree that the audience can't relate to him at all. It ultimately makes him just another soldier more dispensable than his mission. The fun with David Mamet films are the gritty side characters he paints across the landscape of this adventure. A good example is an elderly secret service lady who reveals her own motherly connections to the President's daughter. She appears in one scene only, but the depth of her character becomes one of the anchors of the story. Terrific acting throughout. More fun comes from the unpredictable twists that keep the roller coaster ride going. Movie audiences that are used to Bruce Willis posing his way from one explosion to the next, will have a chance to find themselves impressed by how much the script respects your intelligence. If this was a just world, good word of mouth would give this film some legs. Hopefully it will have some life on DVD.

Mamet's back again with his deceptive sleights of hand, rushing poor Val Kilmer from one precarious situation to the next as if trying to outdo "24".But breathless pace, self-indulgently clever (or rather not so clever) dialogue and plenty of mechanical twists and turns can't hide the fact that this flat and unconvincing charade never generates a shred of emotional or intellectual resonance.Watch those great 70s conspiracy thrillers instead. They were gripping and smart without being sophomoric.3 out of 10 mean Al Bundys