Dead Man's Shoes
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| Dead Man's Shoes | |
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| Directed by | Shane Meadows |
| Produced by | Mark Herbert |
| Written by | Shane Meadows Paddy Considine Paul Fraser |
| Starring | Paddy Considine |
| Cinematography | Danny Cohen |
| Editing by | Celia Haining, Lucas Roche, Chris Wyatt |
| Distributed by | Optimum Releasing |
| Release date(s) |  October 1, 2004 |
| Running time | 86 min. |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| IMDb profile | |
Dead Man's Shoes is a British 2004 film directed by Shane Meadows and written by Shane Meadows and Paddy Considine. As with all of Meadows' work, it is based in the Midlands, with the film being shot in Matlock, Derbyshire. The film stars Paddy Considine, who went on to win an Empire Award for his performance. Featuring many first-time and non-professional actors, Considine's two nephews also feature. It garnered excellent reviews, but did not attain any sizeable commercial success.
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[edit] Plot
The story revolves around the character of Richard (Paddy Considine), a soldier returning to his small home town in the Peak District. Richard has returned home to exact revenge on his mentally disabled younger brother Anthony's (Toby Kebbell) tormentors.
Richard and Anthony camp at an abandoned farm near the town, their reminiscences of childhood interspersed with flashbacks to Anthony's ordeal at the hands of the gang youth, and Richard's subsequent revenge. This revenge starts when the gang and their leader Sonny find out about his presence. Sonny confronts Richard in a failed attempt to intimidate him. Richard's revenge begins with the older members of the gang (Tuff, Herbie & Mark). While they are asleep he sneaks into their house, wearing a green coat and a gas mask. He spray paints one of the two mens hair multi-coloured and paints a target on the back of the other's suit. On the same evening he enters Sonny's house and applies make up to Sonny's face.
However things soon turn nasty as Richard sneaks into a club where the gang are hiding out and playing cards and kills one of their members with an axe, using his blood to scribble the words "One Down" on the wall. The gang take their Citroën 2CV and go to the farm where Richard is staying with Anthony. Sending in Ed (one of their members) to draw Richard out, Sonny prepares to shoot him with a rifle. However, he misfires and kills Ed.
The surviving members return to a local petrol station where Tuff runs off, scared of Richard's revenge. The other three return home, they search the house expecting Richard to be there. However while they are upstairs Richard laces their kettle with a sizable amount of drugs taken from the gang earlier in the film. The three members become too high to be aware that Richard is in the house and he kills them one by one. He shoots Sonny in the head, punches Mark at such an angle that he is killed, and finally stabs Herbie. Before killing Herbie, he reveals having also already killed Tuff, producing his corpse in a suitcase, although it is not revealed how.
With one member of the gang left, Richard abducts him and takes him to an old outbuilding. It is now revealed that Anthony is dead, having been accidentally hanged by the gang in a prank gone bad. The Anthony that is seen with Richard throughout the film is in fact, a hallucination. Not wishing to kill the final member, due to his having children and not being directly responsible for Anthony's death (though not doing anything to prevent it), Richard then forces him to stab him, and dies with his revenge complete.
[edit] Cast
- Paddy Considine - Richard
- Gary Stretch - Sonny
- Toby Kebbell - Anthony
- Emily Aston - Patti
- Neil Bell - Soz
[edit] Awards & critical acclaim
- The film was placed no.180 in Empire magazine's "201 Greatest Movies Of All Time" feature in the March 2006 issue, a surprising occurrence, considering the film's relatively recent release. It placed higher than films such as The Birds and Breakfast at Tiffany's.
- Paddy Considine won "Best British Actor" at the 2005 Empire Awards, beating, amongst others, Simon Pegg for Shaun of the Dead and Daniel Craig for Layer Cake.
