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MovieMail's Review
After the disappointing Once Upon a Time in the Midlands, Shane Meadows got together with long time collaborator Paddy Considine and went back to basics. They wrote and filmed the low-budget revenge-thriller Dead Man's Shoes in a mere 3 weeks. In doing so they created one of the best British films of the year.
Considine returns to a Derbyshire village after a stint in the army to take revenge on the dealers and layabouts who bullied his retarded younger brother. Gradually, as the bullies are brutally dispatched by a stoic, gasmask-clad Considine, the events that occurred while he was away are revealed. Meadows and Considine clearly have axes to grind against the idyllic views normally held of small town country life. They've drawn on their own experiences to crush any misconceptions of tranquility and community - lawlessness and drugs, squalor and isolation are the reality, anything else is fantasy.
Unarguably a bloody revenge flick, it's also a remarkably touching one. In replacing rose-tinted visions of small-town life with blood-drenched goggles, Meadows has put himself back on track as on of Britain's most interesting filmmakers.
Commentaries: Shane Meadows (Director), Paddy Considine (Actor) , Mark Herbert (Producer)
Cast/filmmaker Notes
Extended takes, alternate ending, 'Northern Soul': A Short film by Shane Meadows, scenes from the graphic novel.
Film Description
Considine gives a forceful performance in this Derbyshire-set revenge drama that mixes horror, the supernatural, comedy and social realism. He plays Richard, an enigmatic anti-hero who returns to his hometown after years away. His arrival immediately provokes panic and paranoia in a group of drug dealers who soon regret a horrific mistake they made years earlier. Toby Kebbell makes a terrific debut in the key role of Richard’s retarded brother.
A little masterpiece of a revenger's tragedy. SPOILER WARNING!
Criminally neglected, my prediction is this will be re assessed in twenty years time and hailed... more >
A little masterpiece of a revenger's tragedy. SPOILER WARNING!
Criminally neglected, my prediction is this will be re assessed in twenty years time and hailed as a masterpiece. Can be fairly compared with GET CARTER sharing a similarly shocking ending. Unlike Hodges' masterpiece, this has a lot more comedy, at least to start, the mood becoming darker as the film progresses.
Like GET CARTER it's set in a recognisable milieu - a dreary, nondescript midlands town. A bunch of low life stoners are despatched one by one. We gradually learn about their crimes, how they bullied and abused Paddy Considine's vulnerable brother.
This depicts marvellously the sordid reality of the criminal underworld. It isn't 'geezers' whizzing round in BMWs and designer clothes selling bags of pills and coke. It's inarticulate, badly dressed losers who, lacking any personality of their own, need the constant reassurance and security of their little group. Their sense of self worth being non existent means they turn on someone weaker than themselves, like pack animals.
DEAD MANS SHOES taps into the revengers' tragedies by writers such as Christopher Marlowe, contemporaenous I believe with Shakespeare, thus re-working a thoroughly established British dramatic genre.
I saw this at the cinema and was so impressed, when the DVD came out I had to buy it. Excellent value with an interesting interview with Shane Meadows who gives a lot of background to the film.
