Shane Meadow’s 2004 revenge thriller gets the full bells and whistles reissue treatment. Simon Tucker looks back on what he considers to be a contender for the greatest British film of all time (his words).
This is a film you never forget. Here is a film that haunts and whose atmosphere invokes the Cheyne-Stokes condition which is highlighted for us in the opening section of the film. If you have not seen the film before then I don’t want to introduce any spoilers but will offer up a brief synopsis. Ex-military man, Richard (Paddy Considine in an Oscar-worthy performance) comes back to his hometown of Matlock, Derbyshire to rain down revenge on a group of men who bullied his younger brother Anthony (Toby Kebbell in stunning form). Plot-wise that is all you are getting because this film demands you go in cold.
Thematically the film manages to be a brutal blend of western, horror, black comedy and psychological thriller. It is a film containing a multitude of career-best performances, iconic set pieces (“you’re fucking there mate”) and a classic low-budget directorial style by Shane Meadows. Considine holds the film together with a performance that switches from cold detachment, tortuous guilt, and pure fury. He hunts and wishes to be hunted. Moby and Ahab. Meanwhile, Tony Kebbell brings the heart and raw emotion to the film as Anthony, a young man with LD. It would have been so easy for all those involved to have made Anthony a caricature, a bit-part in his own story, yet in hands of Meadows, Considine, Paul Fraser (who co-wrote the film) and Kebbell we are giving a character who is utterly believable and who tries his best to be Richard’s good consciousness. Around these two we get the gang of bullies headed by Sonny (Gary Stretch) who are an honest mixture of nasty, arrogant, cowardly, and comedic. All of which leads us to the core reason Dead Man’s Shoes works. This is a film so realistic it hurts. Realism is a term often bandied about when it comes to cinema but Dead Man’s Shoes can proudly claim that title. This is not down to just performance and the use of overlapping dialogue but by the themes because anyone who has grown up in poor, working class areas will recognise every character and will emotionally connect with the trauma on screen.
Growing up we remember the bullies and the big-fish-small-pond crew who end up growing up, staying exactly where they were born, caught in arrested development. Sure, their houses get bigger and their stature grows based on a bedrock of fear but when you truly pick at their lives they are nothing but kids who never wanted to grow out of the schoolyard. The drug deals are small-time yet they act like Scarface. A scene that sums this up beautifully involves the gang crammed into a 1987 Citroen 2CV. The gang are still talking big whilst looking like something out of Wacky Races. We, the audience, know these people. A few of us would also recognise the scenes of bullying towards Anthony. The fear of not wanting the gang turning on you. Peer pressured into getting involved even though you hate yourself for it. We remember the Anthony’s of our school days. We remember the Sonny’s and the Herbie’s. Sometimes we wished we didn’t…
Dead Man’s Shoes coats itself so deep in realism that it allows us to believe the moments of revenge fantasy yet never once allows us to celebrate it. There will obviously be parts of us that are glad that these individuals are getting some karmic payback yet the film never displays any joy in the final act. Richard is not some soul saviour and is never presented as such. He is tortured, sad, wracked with guilt and completely lost. There are no winners here…..
Dead Man’s Shoes is a masterpiece. It is a film that even after multiple viewings makes you cry and one that has the ability to tap into the rawest of nerves. Yes, there are moments that make you laugh but these are brief. It is a beautiful voice for those who never had one when they were young and a stark reminder of sins people have committed in their past. It marches at pace towards its devastating climax and leaves you completely emotionally drained and whilst some may do well to avoid such moments, for many of us it is a cathartic trip through the psyche of working class upbringings and the ghosts that still may haunt us.
The greatest British film of all time (yeah I said it).
Second Sight Films have presented us with a slew of wonderful extras which you can find on the Second Sight website, all of which make this the very definition of an essential purchase. Release date 10th August.
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Review by Simon Tucker
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