Dead Man's Shoes Reviews

as it says on the cover ' one of the best british films in years'

in fact i think i would probably go as far as saying, this is one of the best films i have seen in years.....full stop. now i understand its not going to be everyones cup of tea, but for those out there who like a great film with some good old fashioned brit-grit watch it! it's one of those films where you dont quite know what to do with yourself after it. i mean i watched this film and thought it was great 3 days after watching it, i thought it was amazing - reason being, i kept on thinking about it, it kept on coming back into my head, i think i was a bit traumatised by it to be honest, but if that isnt the sign of a good film i dont know what is.

full of grit and grim, very good acting, and a bit of humor thrown in....watch this!

Not as good as everyone thinks

It's wonderful to see Great British public raving over this movie. Yes, it's good and well made if you're at all familiar with the real life versions of the characters, but it certainly won't travel well. The improvised dialogue often seems forced, and fails to work when a lot of the (inexperienced) actors not only talk but shout over one another, which develops only into a self-conscious garbled mess. This makes any viewer alien to the local environment not only fail to understand the dialogue, but also fail to connect with the characters. Considine is - as always - fantastic, as is Kebbler. However, the wobbly, handheld style of the camerawork appears amateurish and had this reviewer feeling nauseous, even well before the appearance of any of the red, red kroovy.

If you like low-budget, independent film, and some particularly unglamorous yet beautiful shots of Derbyshire, then you won't regret watching DMS. However, if you're looking for a shiny red bloodbath to compare with anything that Hollywood has to offer, (and I say this because I believe that the British Film Industry should well be able to compare itself to the consistent professionalism of Hollywood,) then look elsewhere. This film made a huge impact on me, but at the same time gave me too few reasons to want to watch it again.

Highly recommended low budget brit-flick.

I went to see this at the tiny independent 'Phoenix Picture House' in Oxford when it came out. It should really have been released to a much bigger audience as its brilliant.

Paddy Considine plays Richard, an ex marine who returns to his Derbyshire village to have revenge on the drug dealers who have abused his younger, mentally disabled brother, Anthony. Paddy Considine (who is apparently rapidly becoming the best thing in British independent films) plays the part of Richard very convincingly, with a real air of menace and unpredictability about himself. Toby Kebbell's role as Anthony is equally well acted, but due to the lack of filmgoers who will have been able to see the film I very much doubt they will get the recognition they deserve.

The tension that runs through the film is brilliant and you never know just where Richard will pop up next or what he will do. It also has a very real sense of being in Britain without the clich?d set pieces of bigger Brit films like 'Billy Elliot' or the 'Full Monty' that had to try to appeal to the American market. Its realism almost gives it an air of 'documentary' about it.

If you are squeamish you'd be better off giving this one a miss as some of the scenes are really quite nasty. Its not an especially violent film in the way that something like 'Goodfellas' is, but it can be quite graphic in places and the fact that it is so 'British' makes it seem all the more real. But despite being so gruesome in places, the film also has a fantastically black comic streak running through it - like the drug dealers who think they are 'big time', going round crammed 5-up in a Citroen 2cv!

The script is also fantastic and all of the characters are entirely believable. There are no dodgy 'mockneys' or over-acted 'northerners' which some other films are guilty of!

If you fancy something a bit different that is both awesome and British but without being touted by the tabloids as the 'best piece of British film in years' (only to disappoint when you see) it then this is definitely worth a look. Just make sure your Granny has gone home and the kids are in bed!

[Highly rated reviewer]

Tension, emotion, violence

This movie got some great reviews and a reliable recommendation from a friend so our expectations were high and my wife and I were not disappointed. Dead Mans Shoes is a cracking real life revenge thriller, how people can review with one star is beyond me, there is swearing and violence in this film that is true but it is an 18 cert gritty real life thriller of which the front cover displays a man wielding an axe, honestly people what do you expect fluffy bears and flowers? Perhaps if you left your houses once in a while you would see how close to the truth the drama scenes depicted in the film actually are! Of course the brutal but almost justifiable revenge acts are less common! Dead Mans Shoes clearly had a smallish budget but is fast paced with a strong plot that follows the story of Richard a military man who seeks revenge for past atrocities suffered by his younger brother Anthony at the hands of a gang of small time drug dealing wasters. The movie is filmed in a true brit ‘fly on the wall’ style and has just about everything in it, tension, emotion, violence and together with the strong plot and strong performances from the cast makes for a great watch. A welcome break from the Hollywood fairy tails, shocking yet rewarding. 5 Stars.

Revenge!

This is my favourite film of the year so far. The lead is faultless and highly believable in his role as ex army man out for revenge. The extent of the reason for revenge slowly unfolds and keeps you unaware of the full horror until the end. This is up there with all the best revenge thillers, like Old Boy or Kill Bill

Fantastic

Dead Man's Shoes is a film that I'd been waiting for since it's Premiere at the Edinburgh Festival last year. The buzz was promising - a return to form by Shane Meadows after the messy Once Upon A Time In The Midlands, shot in 3 weeks (for ?750,000) and featuring a devastating performance from his friend/actor/collaborator Paddy Considine. The film concerns Richard (Considine), an ex-soldier who returns with his disabled brother Anthony to the small English town they left 10 years before. He has a score to settle with the local gang, headed by Sonny (ex-British Light Middleweight Champion and onetime foe of Chris Eubank, Gary Stretch), who had drugged and abused Anthony before leaving him for dead in a derelict building. Thus opens a revenge movie of sometimes quite startling intensity, Considine (who I've been bigging up recently but honestly feel that he's the best actor England has right now) delivers a performance of rare quality - passive/aggressive, subtle, caring, ferocious but always fuelled by one thing: the guilt of not being there when his brother needed him most. As a director, Meadows isn't shy about referencing the films that influenced Dead Man's Shoes' style - there are echoes of Straw Dogs, Get Carter and even First Blood in the tone but nothing is heavy-handed or blatent. Tony Kebbell is wonderful, underplaying Anthony's vulnerable state when it would have been easy to have done another 'Charlie Babbitt' while Sonny's gang brings some much needed levity (and a few laugh-out-loud comedy scenes) to the show. It's violent, sure, but as Dead Man's Shoes unfolds, we begin to understand exactly why Richard has been driven towards this state. 'God will forgive them. He'll forgive them and let them into Heaven. I can't live with that.' For me, this is the best British film since Trainspotting, and the more I watch it the more I feel that DMS could surpass Danny Boyle's 1996 landmark.

Perfectly formed

A gorgeous sunny Derbyshire is the setting for this perfect small film of small town revenge and redemption.

Paddy Considine (from Chris Morris’s My Wrongs and 24hr Party People) is the beardy-weirdy army vet come home to right wrongs and wreak freaky vengeance on the local scum. His performance is relaxed and utterly believable, but it is the fantastically well-observed rogues who make this film great. You wouldn’t want to be in the same room as any of them, but Meadows takes us inside their filthy dope pads and hollow repetitive lives and somehow makes them breathe.

The trick with this sort of film is to get us to engage with the villains, so that when they get their comeuppance, you aren’t just sitting there passively keeping score.

If Sam Peckinpah and Mike Leigh had an awkward sweaty tequila-fueled one night stand in a decommissioned nuclear power plant, this is the beautifully mutated love-child they would make.

New British Violence!

Not quite what I expected. After seeing the trailer, I thought it might be a bit like a horror film, because he was wearing the gas mask. It’s more of a gruesome revenge thriller. The setting made me think of places like Keighley or Mixenden with that strange mix of scenery and council estates. The film makes a lot of use of it’s setting and frames that strange world really nicely. Huge green rolling hills with a castle on top, overlooking the grey council houses.

The drug dealers that Paddy Consadine goes after are really stupid, slobbish morons but very real. Having lived in places like Brighouse and Marsden, I’ve definitely met their depressing type many times. It’s definitely got a very gritty edge to it but nicely contrasted with the dreamy cinematography and the use of lots of new psycehedelic/pastoral acoustic music like The Earlies, Clayhill and Richard Hawley. It’s definitely not going to be everyone’s cup of tea. The film mainly follows around the drug dealers who you’re not going to sympathise with. However, I really enjoyed seeing a cinematic treatment of a world I always knew existed but never got the film treatment before.

Brutal but Brilliant!!

I was blown away by this film, about time too as I am getting rather fed up with the typical American thriller fodder of late. Paddy Considine is excellent as the brooding, retribution seeking brother.

Theres lots of violence, so not one for the faint hearted, but if you like your thrillers to reach out from the screen & grab you & keep you enthralled from beginning to end then this is one for you. More UK films of this calibre PLEASE!!!

Harrowing but Brilliant

Re-thinking what I thought of this film as I write this, my initial thoughts conjured up the harrowing emotions that ran through me throughout, but they are quickly followed by just how brilliant it was too.

The character Richard, is just brilliant; he's a completely nice psychotic avenger and the drug sellers he's out to get are equally as brilliant.

Not one to watch if you're looking for something upbeat but it'll certainly make you think.