Val Kilmer, I fear, is a forgettable actor. I only remember him as Madmartigan in Willow, an overrated film, and as FBI agent Ray Levoi in Thunderheart, an underrated film. I know I saw The Saint, but certainly don’t remember him as Simon Templar. ⁽¹⁾ Nevertheless, he’s a hard worker and has paid his dues (seven films this year???), and at least he has a reasonable repertoire of facial expressions, unlike some other actors of his generation (Lance Guest in The Last Starfighter) and a later one (Tom Welling in Smallville).

Here, Kilmer is Scott, a former army ranger now working in the Secret Service as one of their top trouble shooters, the man they call in when they have a real problem. In this David Mamet film (Mamet, I am told, is a name to conjure with), there is a real problem: the President’s daughter has disappeared, and nobody knows exactly how or why ― her own Secret Service guard appears to have gone off post for some reason, and now she’s just gone. Scott finds indications that the disappearance is not a political one ― it would seem that she has been kidnapped by a Middle Eastern “white” slavery ring who have shipped her out to Qatar for “processing” and sale to some Middle Eastern sheikh, without being aware of her actual identity. But just as he and his companions are about to resolve this problem, her body turns up, along with that of a former professor of hers, in the Atlantic Ocean off the New England Coast ― apparently they were having a tryst on his yacht and it sank.

Since this gets us about halfway through the movie, we can be sure that the problem hasn’t been really solved, and that Scott will solve it. Unfortunately, although he’s the man to have around to solve the real problems, as I said, he’s definitely a loose cannon when it comes to real real problems, the sort that a good President has handlers (Ed O’Neill, William H. Macy) to help him avoid. Which means that to solve the real problem without falling afoul of the real real problem, he’s going to have to work pretty much on his own for the rest of the film, perhaps even (if there’s no sequel) for the rest of his life.

I enjoyed the film; it was not overlong and was paced well, and Kilmer did a good, workmanlike job. Most of his costars were sadly underused, particularly the sinister O’Neill (a far cry from the late Al Bundy) and his silent companion Macy. Tia Texada pops up every now and then (in fact, she’s the first person to appear on the screen), and could also have been more wisely, and often, used.

Enjoy it on DVD, since by this time it should be out of the theaters.