Dawkins writes:

Lost amid all the political hate speech directed these days at Mel Gibson and his "Passion" movie was the release this weekend of David Mamet's "Spartan."

In all seriousness, go see this movie now.

Skillfully scripted, plotted, and acted, it's a suspense thriller that's deeply political, thought-provoking, and quite incendiary.

The rough outline of the plot's first ten minutes:

In the dead of night, the daughter of a certain very important person is kidnapped from the campus of a Boston university, and various shadowy intelligence services, with help from mercenary commandos like Val Kilmer, are brought together to retrieve the girl.

I'll not reveal more (because I know you'll all see it), but suffice to say the story becomes very complicated, and the United States and its intelligence services come out looking not very good at all, and the film is particularly damning of a faceless - and highly sinister and cutthroat -- coterie of certain high-level executive "handlers."

See it quick before it leaves the theaters.

Interesting as well that a cameo role (as a sultry Boston bartendress) is played by Alexandra Kerry, daughter of presumptive Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry.

You heard it here first: Look for Kerry's daughter's appearance to become fodder, whether in shouts or whispers, for anti-Kerry slander from forces working toward Bush's re-election. Something like:

"How can Kerry's daughter - and by extension, Kerry himself -- condone such an anti-American, anti-patriotic film…?"

Scant attention's been paid so far to the damning things the film has to say, but the Village Voice has it right when it says of Mamet:

…there's little question that he's aiming this modest shoulder rocket at Bush-Cheney Corp., and that the moral gist of his wild tale is essentially true. By despairing of the military or intelligence communities rather than heroizing them, Mamet is quietly bucking the system-not just Hollywood, but the larger octopus, which will surely engineer the movie's neglect just as congressmen blackmail broadcasting companies into suspending Howard Stern and federal tax dollars pour into faith-based institutions on their way to buying ticket blocks for The Passion of the Christ.

Oh yeah, saw "The Passion of the Christ" too. Will comment soon…