Dead Man’s Shoes is a psychological revenge thriller, co-written
and directed by the toast of the British critical community, Shane Meadows.
Writing with Paul Fraser and Paddy Considine, who also stars, the film focuses
on the return to a small northern town of an ex-soldier who reappears after his
little brother is humiliated by a group of local drug dealers. The film opens
with little back story and reveals itself through the use of grainy, black and
white flashbacks, building a picture of the events which lead up to the current
plot as it progresses in ever more violent and sadistic ways. It saves its
biggest and best reveal until close to the conclusion in a feat of wonderful
storytelling which put a delicious cherry on top of an already appealing
cinematic cake.
Although Shane Meadows is
considered to be one of the brightest talents in UK cinema, I’ve never really found
myself that blown away by his films. I can appreciate his style and especially
the way in which he gets his films made but they’ve never done anything for me.
This changed with Dead Man’s Shoes
and instantly became my favourite film from a director I hadn’t really got
until now. Not only do I think it’s one of Meadows’ best but I’m struggling to
think of a better independent British film from the past decade too.
Although the film is technically
very well made, it’s the story which really drives it to great heights.
Considine’s character is creepy and calculating and appears almost like a ghost
in the film. For the other characters, they’re actually living a real life
horror story in which Considine’s Richard is the ghostly monster who hunts
them. The tension is palpable but it’s played off against some fantastic black
comedy. The reactions on the faces of the other characters as Richard comes
marauding into their lives is priceless and their car, speech and general
confusion adds a lot to the comedy. I deeply disliked the drug dealing
characters and was glad to see what was coming to them. They’re the type of big
fish in a small pond, slurred speeched northerners who you always get in the
sort of town depicted in the film and indeed in the outlying areas of larger
towns. Their inability to deal with what was happening to them drives a lot of
the comedy and furthers the plot.
I don’t want to talk much about
the actual story aside from saying that it’s really well written, edgy and up
there with the revenge thrillers of Na Hong-jin, Kim Ji-woon and Jeong-beom Lee.
For a small British picture to be mentioned in amongst the heavyweights from Korea shows how
highly I rate the writing. Meadows’ direction is also superb. I liked the
stylistic choice to film the flashbacks in black and white as it really
separated them from the central arc set in the modern day. Both the flashbacks
and ‘current’ cinematography were visually dazzling and simple yet
eye-catching. The film has a great look about it which pitches itself somewhere
between Ken Loach’s gritty realism and David Lynch’s psychological fantasy. The
visuals are accompanied by a great soundtrack which really hits the dramatic
notes hard while the sets were also very well dressed.
Paddy Considine is an actor who
goes up in my estimations upon each new role I see him in. Here he is about as
good as I’ve seen him. He brings such intensity and cruelty to the role but is
also frail and reserved at times. There’s a lot of love and passion coming
through too and a lack of malice or regret in his eyes as he wields axes and
knives. The final scene tops off a wonderful performance when all of the above
is broken down and from the wreckage emerges a simple, normal human who loves
his brother. The supporting cast is also generally quite good and they mostly
give performances which feel highly improvised, loose and natural.
Overall as you can probably tell,
I really liked Dead Man’s Shoes. It’s
a tightly woven thriller with a tremendous story that slowly unravels while
pulling punches at every turn. It’s set in a realistic location amongst
realistic people and features one of the best performances so far from one of
my country’s top acting talents.
9/10
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