With a Vengeance

Dead Man’s Shoes takes revenge to a not-so-new, very British level.
by Eric Otto
Rating: 2.5 out of 5 reels

Vengeance is all the rage (get it?) these days, with a spate of recent films including Lady Vengeance, The Proposition and here with Dead Man’s Shoes-Shane Meadows’ stab at spanking some bad arses in the UK Midlands. The film has the simple beauty and snap rhythm of a film shot quickly on the run, effectively using handheld cameras and grainy small format footage. The kind of style that big-budget films make pretentious, here better fits the bill. The acting-particularly in the case of the soddy nobs that make up the gang of low lifers-is so believable that Dead Man’s Shoes feels like a documentary. The aforementioned sods collectively fall into the crosshair sight of an Army vet played by Paddy Considine (who also shares screenwriting credit here with Meadows, and is coincidently in the cast of The Proposition).

The vengeance genre picked up steam in the ’70s with B-movie trash like I Spit on Your Grave, building momentum with films like the Death Wish series through to the pumped-up Rambo: First Blood. Let’s face it, it’s always easier to heal social ills with a hunting knife. Or a handgun. Or a rocket launcher.

Of course, the more you’re outraged by the crime, the more you root for death. And that’s exactly where Dead Man’s Shoes delivers. Considine’s character, Richard, comes home after six years to exact revenge for the cruel and violent torment of his kid brother Anthony (Toby Kebbell), who is slightly mentally handicapped and an easy target for a bunch of drug pushing, porn perusing small town blue-collar blokes. One by one, he hunts them down. Richard isn’t Rambo (he looks more like my cousin George, a history professor at NYU), but he operates with unbelievable efficiency that’s as effortless as it is effective, and kills with impunity beyond his own self-torment. His victims are a sad and pathetic lot, made more so by Meadows’ flare for comedy. They move as a bully mob, never leaving one behind, and they motor about in a silly green Citroën named Betty with a Killroy-like drawing on the front. The boys’ muscle is real, but you can’t help but snicker as they tool about in their little rambler ready to rumble. The bully leader is a Steven Segal look-alike, and one has to admit to a certain joy at his comeuppance.

And that’s the fuel of the vengeance genre-the catharsis, the wish fulfillment of punishing and humiliating those who have abused their power over the weak. In the superhero stories, there is a character trial that the hero must endure. But Richard’s character remains illusive despite a driven performance by Considine. We have very little backstory to his character, as if Meadows sees him as an everyman-his military service merely a vague justification of his killing effectiveness. Near the end, Richard speaks about the embarrassment his brother brought upon him, but it is uttered during an emotional rant, and without any supportive narrative, it comes off as simply a taunt. Dead Man’s Shoes would have done better with more shades to Richard’s anger. LAA

Rated R; opens Friday in select theaters.