Whilst I had seen Paddy Considine in a few smaller roles it wasn't until House of the Dragon and his absolutely stellar performance as King Viserys Targaryen that I really started to take notice of him. The level of warmth and kindness he brought to a role that needed such a depth of humanity to avoid becoming at times monstrous was something that he had in spades, injecting every scene he was in with subtle, endearing performances that should have won him awards. One of his earliest roles, a film that has gone on to achieve cult status in the two decades since it was releases, is 2004's British crime thriller Dead Man's Shoes, which has just received a new Limited Edition Blu-ray release from Second Sight Films.
Dead Man's Shoes follows the story of Richard (Paddy Considine), a paratrooper who's returned home to his small Derbyshire town of Matlock. This is not a happy homecoming, however, as Richard has come back to take revenge on a small group of low level criminals and thugs who tormented his younger brother Anthony (Toby Kebbell) into taking his life. Richard spends a day stalking various members of the group, watching them from a distance, before breaking into each of their homes that first night, leaving behind evidence that he was there as a warning that he could get to them at any time. As the gang of drug dealers and thugs try to come up with a plan for dealing with the vengeful Richard he starts to pick them off one by one, and they quickly realise that despite their numbers there's little they can do to stop a man out to avenge his family.
The plot for Dead Man's Shoes isn't a complicated one, which considering how quickly the film was made and for the tiny budget it had it's not all that surprising. It's a very by the numbers plot, someone wants revenge and starts killing the bad guys. What makes Dead Man's Shoes stand out from dozens of other films that have the exact same set up is in how brutally depressing it is in how it goes about things, and just how very real and human it feels.
One of the things that I think British cinema is able to do that American movies just can't touch is making something that feels so real and gritty that you sometimes forget that you're watching fiction and you just feel the movie. Dead Man's Shoes is a dull, grimy looking film, one that rarely has any strong colours, that shows real, rundown locations, and features actors that look like they walked in off the street. There's no glossiness to it, no handsome stars that look like they stepped out of a fashion show, not fancy camerawork or big stunts; and the result is a film that you feel like you could live in, which just makes the brutality of the film hit all the harder.
Richard is out for blood, and when the violence happens is sudden, short, and shocking. There's one scene that's filled with blood as Richard takes someone out with an axe and we see the aftermath, but for the most part there's little in terms of gore and violence. People die after getting stabbed a single time, Richard kills someone with a hard punch to the face, there's no action, and might be one of the most accurate films I think I've seen for showcasing just how fragile a human life can be.
Whilst the violence of Richards revenge is brutal, it's nowhere near as shocking as the reason for it. Scattered throughout the film are grainy black and white scenes that show what happened to Richard's brother Anthony. A young man with learning disabilities, Anthony thinks he's been taken in by the group, seen as one of the gang, little realising that he's there for them to mock him, to be their plaything. As the flashbacks progress we see things turn more sinister, as he's forced to take drugs, beaten, raped, and eventually tortured and abused into taking his own life. These scenes often come after Richard has killed one of Anthony's tormentors, and I don't know if the intent is to remind you why its a good thing why Richard is killing them, but instead it just makes you feel sick. These scenes tell you that violence and torment only beget more violence and torment. Any high you may feel at seeing bad people get what's coming to them is torn away as you watch what Anthony went through.
The scenes with Anthony's torment are for myself the worst to watch in the film. They're too brutal, too realistic. Not everyone will have been in a situation where they've been treated like that, or seen it happen to others, but I think that these scenes will be shockingly familiar to a lot of people, and they certainly reminded me of some awful moments from my childhood. This brutality is deliberate, and in some of the behind the scenes features on the movie Writer/Director Shane Meadows talks about his own youth, of growing up around skinhead neo-Nazis and the violence that he saw first hand. It's clear that these events had a profound effect on him, and it certainly feels like Dead Man's Shoes is him in some way excising some of those demons onto film, recreating that violence.
Balancing out all of the violence in the film is the almost docile performance of Paddy Considine as Richard. Rather than displaying his anger as explosive loudness, Considine plays Richard with an eerie kind of calm. He's quiet, deliberate, often gentle up until the moment when he needs to kill. There's an early scene in which the leader of the gang, Sonny (Gary Stretch) tries to get Richard to leave before the killing starts, and the way that Richard talks to him like he's chatting to someone down the shops makes him so much more sinister than if he was angry. His calmness projects a level of confidence on Richard that feels earned, and that makes his eventual breakdown at the end of the film all the more tragic.
Alongside Considine I want to mention the performance of Kebbell as Anthony. Despite not being alive during the course of the film we get to know Anthony through both the flashback scenes, and via Richard, who spends time talking to an imaginary version of Anthony. The imaginary Anthony is probably supposed to be a big reveal, but it felt very obvious from the start of the film that only Richard acknowledges him, and that he's not really there, and I'm glad that the film never makes a big dramatic scene in which it's revealed that Richard is talking to himself, instead being treated like something that the audience should have worked out by that point. Whilst these moments with Anthony are brief, and mostly told through Richard's memory of what his brother was like, Anthony is given real humanity throughout. You can't help but see the goodness in him, can't help but see how easy it would be for him to fall in with a bad crowd and be taken advantage of. Kebbell talks candidly about his worries about playing the role respectfully, of not being exploitative, and I think he does a good job in not making a mockery of the character and instead playing him with great pathos.
The Second Sight release comes with a decent amount of special features to accompany the movie. There's three full audio commentaries, two of which are brand new for this release. These feature Director Shane Meadows, Producer Mark Herbert, Paddy Considine, and film experts Jon Towlson and Andrew Graves. Across the three commentaries you're covered for every aspect of the film's production, as well as discussions about the impact of the film and it's place in British cinema, so if you're the kind of person who loves learning about movies they'll tick those boxes for you. There are also several interviews, including brand new ones with Shane Meadows and Mark Herbert, Toby Kebbell, and Gary Stretch. Deleted and extended scenes, as well as an alternate ending are included, alongside In Shane's Shoes, an archival behind the scenes feature that goes into Shane Meadows history with violence in his youth and his journey to making Dead Man's Shoes. The short 30 minute movie Northern Soul, which features cast from Dead Man's Shoes, and a music video round out the disc.
Having not seen Dead Man's Shoes before, but having heard of it, I was glad to be given the chance to not only experience it, but to be able to dive into the behind the scenes of the film and have the chance to understand it better thanks to this new release. Whilst the film isn't a long one, the trio of commentaries, interviews, and other extras make this feel like a release that's absolutely worth the money, and one that any fan of the movie will want to experience.
Dead Man's Shoes is available now on Limited Edition Blu-ray from Second Sight Films.
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