Review: Dead Man's Shoes (2006)

In Dead Man's Shoes director Shane Meadows showcases a movie that is all heart but in a fashion so gritty and ugly that it's nigh on impossible to feel sympathetic to almost any of the characters. Measuring the limits of common human decency and exploring how compulsive vengeance can be proves to be an exercise in self control from a viewing perspective as the movie unfolds and the morality of each personality spirals furthur into the abyss.

Taking place exclusively amidst the rural villages of Englands Midlands, Dead Man's Shoes tells the story of Richard (Paddy Considine), a paratrooper who returns home to exact revenge upon the tormentors of his mentally disabled younger brother, Anthony (Toby Kebbell). The extent of Anthony's abuse stems from a group of drug dealers who manipulate him into feeling like an important part of their group before taking advantage of him in an series of increasingly sinister ways. This coersion runs parrallel to the main revenge narrative via a number of grained black and white flashbacks, which early on seemingly lack in subtlety but progressively intensify the hardened tone of the production as a whole. At first, Richard plays mind games with his targets and the film takes it's time to establish who each of the key antagonists are but from the moment first blood is shed, events only continue to darken at a dizzying pace; there's a solid chance that the only reason that Dead Man's Shoes is watchable is because Meadows ramps up the tension with such incessant speed that it becomes difficult to stop absorbing the drama, however brutal.

Most of that brutality comes courtesy of Paddy Considine, putting in a career defining performance as a man so utterly driven that in the heat of his fury it's impossible to imagine how he would have been before the events of the movie. In between these scenes, Richards intimidation techniques influences the tone of a number of early sequences. however, Considine plays the role with a certain sensitivity that can only be associated with such a hardened bastard as Richard. Paddy's remarkable ability to change the whole feel of the movie in a single moment is an aesthetic in and of itself. Kebbell does a more than competent job of portraying Anthony, both in quiet and comfortable moments with Richard as well as in the torturous flashes of sheer humiliation at the hands of the gang he hangs around with.


Meadows shows that he knows how to work a scene throughout the movie, making full use of the British countryside that is rarely shown in such a frequent manner as it is here and managing to seamlessly portray the cramped interiors that make up about half of the movie. He manages the film with a certain balance that keeps the whole production on the right side of razor's edge between raw and silly. The soundtrack for the film, made mostly of acoustic tracks, works wonders at establishing and re-establishing the mood as it radically shifts. The only real gripe would be with the two choir tracks towards the back half of the film, the latter of the two working in conjuncture with the mise-en-scene to achieve a certain sense of awe, but the former seeming slightly pretentious due to the stark contrast with the established setting and method used to set up the story.
Ultimately, although not without it's flaws, Considine and Meadows have provided a dark and fatalistic journey to the heart of evil that can be accessed by anyone, providing they've lost enough to really drive them.

4/5
(originally posted on Screened.com)