Spartan is serious in a way it seems only Mamet can manage while screenwriters the world (or at least America) over continually treat audiences like idiots, hammering every joke home with the subtlety of a jackhammer, leaving flashing neon arrows on top of every clue.

Besides being popular, it’s the only genre among the traditionally expensive fields of action or sci-fi where all you need is a recipe for blood and friends who are good screamers. Plenty of Australasian filmmakers started that way, including a certain portly, bearded kiwi who went on to win an Oscar for his Lord of the Rings films.

Director Matt Reeves gives an enlightening commentary where he deals with some fascinating aspects of the technique. For example, some of the very long takes (by the camera-wielding hero Hud) are actually many different shots, the joins invisible amid the various fast movements of the panicked handycam operator.