Dead Mans Shoes (2006)

"Gripping and artful.  Jami Bernard, New York Daily News
"A film for the true connoisseur. Tight, well-made and evocative.  Reed, New York Observer
"An outright masterpiece...As powerful a piece of work as Taxi Driver was in its day.  S.F. Said, Daily Telegraph
"Gripping and artful.  "Jami Bernard, New York Daily News"
""A film for the true connoisseur. Tight, well-made and evocative."  "Reed, New York Observer"
"An outright masterpiece...As powerful a piece of work as Taxi Driver was in its day.  "S.F. Said, Daily Telegraph"

Editor's Note Talented director Shane Meadows (A ROOM FOR ROMEO BRASS) teams up with fellow Brit Paddy Considine (IN AMERICA) for this exhilarating venture towards the dark edges of the human psyche. Considine plays Richard, a former military man who looks like life has chewed him up and spat him out in the most ugly way imaginable. As Meadows's film begins, Richard returns to his small home town along with his mentally challenged younger brother, Anthony (Toby Kebbell). It quickly becomes clear why Richard has returned: some years previously a gang of local thugs, led by the thoroughly unpleasant Sonny (Gary Stretch), tortured Anthony, and Richard is hell-bent on making them pay for their crimes. Meadows gradually allows Richard's psychotic tendencies and lust for revenge to unravel, crafting a number of scenes where Richard teasingly mocks Sonny and co. before delving into scenes of shockingly relentless violence. An unusual film for Meadows, who has mostly plied his trade as a director of wry British comedies, DEAD MAN'S SHOES is packed full of unbearable tension and densely claustrophobic camera work. The film really belongs to Considine, whose impressive performance feels painfully real, often mirroring legendary on-screen psychopaths such as Robert DeNiro's Travis Bickle (TAXI DRIVER) or Michael Caine's Jack Carter (GET CARTER). Although the violence is unremitting when it comes, Meadows carefully judges it so the film doesn't descend into meaningless slasher territory, instead choosing to steer his film into a satisfying fantasy-revenge scenario aimed at anyone who has been tormented by small-town aggressors.

	Gary Stretch
	Jo Hartley
	Paddy Considine
	Toby Kebbell
	Aphex Twin - Original Music By
	Celia Haining, et. al. - Editor
	Danny Cohen - Cinematographer
	Mark Herbert - Producer
	Paddy Considine - Writer
	Shane Meadows - Director
	Steve Beckett - Executive Producer
	"Celia Haining, et. al." - Editor

New York Times
"With its raw, grainy texture and forceful sense of urgency, Shane Meadows's unsparing revenge thriller DEAD MAN's SHOES is reminiscent of a kind of film prominent in the 1970's, most notably Sam Peckinpah's STRAW DOGS." 05/12/2006 p.E10

Box Office
3.5 stars out of 5 -- "[G]ripping drama...thanks to a ferociously effective performance from Considine that turns the smallest of gestures and the gentlest of line readings into a controlled burn that takes no prisoners..." 07/01/2006 p.65

The Guardian 8 of 10
"There is carnage; there is bloodshed; but Meadows coolly keeps everything loping along at an unhurried pace. This is a world where blokes who've known each other since boyhood, and remain childish in everything but innocence, go round to each other's manky houses to hang about, doing not very much...It's a very confident piece of work though, and Meadows impresses a directorial signature on every scene. He is particularly good on the sense of place: the abject semis, the dank avenues, the rusting fences: the untenanted, unpoliced wasteland between suburbia and countryside, which becomes the bad guys' abattoir." - Peter Bradshaw

Reel.com 7 of 10
"With Dead Man's Shoes, his follow-up to the light-hearted Spaghetti Western homage Once Upon A Time in the Midlands, writer/director Shane Meadows has crafted a relentlessly dark and disturbing vigilante drama in the grim mold of Death Wish (1974). Although it's bleak to the point of ugliness, this graphically violent film is actually more intriguing than it first appears. There's a strong streak of black humor in this reasonably successful amalgam of different genre motifs, which takes place in the despairing squalor of a rural Midlands community. Unfortunately, the absence of emotionally engaging characters, combined with the cast's thick, unintelligible accents, undermines what could have been a taut and provocative exploration on the moral price of vengeance." - Tim Knight