The revenge drama is a strange genre. The most effective examples of the genre are those that use the genre's structure to question the violent impulses that exist within every human; however, the best-known entries stack the sympathy deck so blatantly that they do little more than justify their own bloodlust. (Think Unforgiven for the former, I Spit on Your Grave for the latter.)
Writer/director Shane Meadows' Dead Man's Shoes does the former via tonal subversion. It's an interesting tactic, and I'm certainly sympathetic towards Meadows' intent (the most reprehensible film I've seen in the last twelve months is the vile Lady Vengeance, which is the latter example writ large and Trojan-horsed as serious art). The resulting film, though, is a thing rife with critical flaws.
The plot is so simple that it hardly seems worth a mention. There's a guy named Richard (Paddy Considine), see? And some hoods were mean to his mentally retarded younger brother Anthony (Toby Kebbell), see? And now he's going to exact his revenge, see? And... that's about it. There are some splintered flashbacks that interrupt the film's dogged progress towards its endgame, but for the most part it's this guy stalking these other guys.
This simplicity has its function: It allows Meadows to indulge his favorite theme - the intimacy of the everyday. With films like TwentyFourSeven and Once Upon a Time in the Midlands, Meadows showed himself to be a cinematic naturalist of the first order. Dead Man's Shoes, then, sees him applying the template of naturalism to a genre that would seem to obviate it.
I can see where Meadows is coming from with this; by grounding the drama, Meadows removes the vicarious thrills inherent in the genre, thereby leaving only the drab, depressing ugliness at the heart of it all.
A lot of this naturalism is used on the loosely organized gang of thugs that slighted Anthony so long ago. We observe them hanging out, shooting the shit and otherwise doing all those things that lads do.
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Article comments
1 - peter walsh
For me, it's Ahab mate. Richard is smashing though the paper masks, looking for a deeper core to strike at with his vengeance. The religious motifs and themes of the film are tangled and deep-running. The killings are predestined, and cannot be prevented. That, I reckon, is why Sonny doesn't reload his gun. He knows he can't stop Richard. Ignore the banal backdrop, the grubbiness of the town and its lowlife. This is heaven and hell, with all the rhythms of the universe pumping through it.
2 - simon l
To question why Anthony is handicapped, and why Sonny does not reload his gun brings to the surface that maybe you just did not understand the film.
Sonny was the big I am, all front, he was scared and in shock, that is why he sat back down in his seat holding the rifle, the treatment of a young handicapped boy let alone his brother shows us the justification for such brutality. ten out of ten.