Dead Man’s Shoes
SHANE MEADOWS HAD been burnt. His 2002 film Once Upon A Time In The Midlands had opened to what he later described as a “lacklustre” response. This wasn’t business as usual for Meadows: a filmmaker who those who love, do so passionately. The very few who don’t, do so with an equal strength of feeling. “Lacklustre” is simply not a word that you ever associate with Meadows, or his films. Both known for their singularity of voice.
That film had a punchy budget (for a writerdirector used to working with relatively little); big names (Robert Carlyle, Kathy Burke) and execs weighing in. So, Meadows did the only thing he knew how to: he got rid of it all. He got rid of the stars, the crews and the cash. And he made a film that stands today as the most powerful of all of his films. The one that drips Meadows in every single shot. That speaks to his intent “to get back to being honest with myself”. Shane Meadows made Dead Man’s Shoes.
The idea for the film came from a meeting of both minds and experiences: that of Meadows and actor-turned-co-writer Paddy Considine (who’d had his breakthrough role in A Room For Romeo Brass). Both men had grown up in small towns in the Midlands, and were aware of the damage that could be done to them — and the people who live in them — by drugs and small-time thugs. The original idea they explored was more comedic — a superhero roaming the estates — but it quickly evolved to become bleaker in tone.
It was the first time that Meadows had dug into this side of working-class life; and not something he did lightly. “It’s a big departure in so much as the films I’ve made before have always been about celebrating the working class,” he said around the time of the film’s release, before clarifying, “I’m not looking down on these people, I’ve lived in that community.”
Considine is Richard, an ex-british Army paratrooper, who we meet as he returns to his hometown of Matlock after eight years away. “God will forgive them,” begins his voiceover narration. “He will forgive them and allow them into heaven. And I can’t live with that.”
He walks down a country lane, combat duffle bag over one shoulder, as his mentally disabled younger brother Anthony (Tony Kebbell in his first film role) follows behind. They set up camp in derelict farm buildings on the outskirts of town, and though we’re not yet sure what the mission of the pair is, it becomes clearer when Richard visits a house in town and the first footage depicting the past is introduced. It’s black and white, documentary in style and comes infused with tension and a sense of foreboding: something very bad happened to his brother in this town and Richard won’t rest until he punishes who’s responsible.
What follows isn’t quite a roaring rampage of revenge, but certainly isn’t far off, as Richard meticulously tracks the gang who, as the details
begin to unfurl alongside the action, we discover mercilessly tortured his brother.
The methods employed by Richard to exact his brutal retribution are increasingly deranged and culminate in what Meadows would later describe as a “seismic” drug scene, one achieved by keeping the actors up for days (and one that he also credits with landing the film an 18 rating). Richard spikes members of the gang and then, donning the gas mask that would become iconic, takes advantage of their acid-induced terror to torment them, just as his brother was tormented. It remains one of the most realistic drug scenes committed to film, depicting the highs and the mounting, eventually-unbearable horror in granular, unflinching detail.
Meadows’ commitment to realism — even in something which as a vigilante tale could easily be likened to Death Wish — is etched into every frame. Something borne out of the back-to-thevery-basics filmmaking approach he reverted to. Meadows and Considine wrote for two weeks and shot the film in three. The film was made on a budget of just £750,000, the smallest he’d worked with. “We said on this one, we want less money than we need,” he said. “We want to have our backs against the wall, driving around in a minibus.’
In addition to the minibus, they had just a tripod (meaning all shots had to be handheld or static) and one light. This was a film crafted not from flashy techniques, but from grounded, in-the-gut storytelling.
But it’s a film truly made on performances — naturalistic, as is Meadows’ trademark — and built predominantly from improvisation. Quite a feat given that it was not only Kebbell’s first film (after signing on just three days before the shoot began after the original actor dropped out), but also that of former boxer Gary Stretch, who made his debut as oily gang leader Sonny.
The towering, defining performance, though, belongs to Paddy Considine, who hums and throbs with tightly harnessed rage. The moments when Considine allows it to penetrate the surface, in both small ways (“You’re fucking there, mate” to Sonny while prodding his palm) and big (any number of cold-blooded murders), are utter magic. You can even see the cinematic DNA of Travis Bickle as his psyche contorts and fractures completely.
This isn’t, crucially, just a revenge movie though. A stylistically rich but substance-light affair. Not even close. And the devastating, utterly haunting final 20 minutes of the film see the heart of Meadow’s vision beat loud. He recognises the human need for righting wrongs. The despair of living with your rage, your grief, your molecular pain, if you’re not gifted the justice you deserve. But beyond this, it’s a mirror-to-the-soul deconstruction of the very concept of revenge. Of who he benefits, ultimately. Of what it can do to not just your mind, but your soul. If you’re consumed by it, says Shane Meadows, if you don’t forgive, then you become the monster. And that’s the thing we must never, ever become.