In Shane Meadows’ violent 2004 revenge movie, Dead Man’s Shoes, a British soldier (Paddy Considine, also the screenwriter) returns to his hometown in the Midlands to wreak revenge on a gang of local druggies and wasters. It seems that these people, once friends of our soldier protagonist, Richard, have wronged Richard’s developmentally disabled brother, Anthony (Toby Kebbell). In a parallel plot, we get flashbacks to what exactly transpired between Anthony and the gang – presented in rather clichéd black and white, though these scenes cannot have transpired more than a few years at maximum before the main plot – while in the present we alternate between Richard’s revenge, which is both physically and psychologically brutal, and rather sweet pastoral scenes in which he converses with Anthony, scored to gentle folk/Americana songs.
Dead Man’s Shoes made a bigger splash for Shane Meadows than any of his prior efforts, setting the stage for him to make an even greater impact with This is England, generally agreed to be the filmmaker’s magnum opus. Meadows was coming off Once Upon a Time in the Midlands, which had the backing of Film4 and a cast of enviable talent from across Britain with Rhys Ifans, Robert Carlyle, Kathy Burke and more. Midlands had proven commercially and artistically underwhelming (though this reviewer likes it a great deal), a romantic comedy with little sense of urgency and Spaghetti Western stylings that add little. Dead Man’s Shoes has the feeling of a riposte to that film; it contains similar elements but is presented with little humour, a smaller budget, and no showiness of style. It’s about as raw and nasty as this kind of material can get, making a virtue of its limited ambition: a small cast, a small scope, a battle waged with the kind of weapons one would expect to see scrounged together in a small British town – a samurai sword; a bolt-action hunting rifle; a ludicrously small crossbow, possibly a children’s toy. The film is short, violent, singular of purpose, and off-puttingly nihilistic, but it evidently made its mark on those who could stomach it, and if it’s Dead Man’s Shoes we have to thank for the continuing careers of Shane Meadows, Paddy Considine and Tobby Kebbell then we ought to be grateful there.
This revisit comes with a whole heap of extras including three commentaries; one new and two archival. Of the two new ones, one is more of a technical and behind-the-scenes discussion with Shane Meadows and producer Mark Herbert, with another, a critical appreciation by critics/Shane Meadows fans Andrew Grave and Jon Towlson. The archival commentary, for Dead Man’s Shoes‘ initial release in 2004, is looser than the others, with Meadows, Paddy Considine and Herbert in an infectiously good mood as they talk low-budget shooting, script, and drug experiences.
Interviews here include “Quite a Journey”, with Shane Meadows and producer Herbert; “A Very Fine Line”, with Anthony’s actor Toby Kebbell, now a Hollywood star (Fantastic Four, Koba in the Planet of the Apes series, Kong: Skull Island); “The Right Horses”, with boxer/model/actor Gary Stretch, who plays chief nasty Sonny; and “Made an Impact” with DP Danny Cohen.
There are deleted scenes, the highlight being a chilling scene in which Richard interacts with Mark’s unaccompanied kids at the park. There are also extended versions of a number of scenes; these would, realistically, never be included in the final product uncut, but their inclusion gives a sense of the improvisatory nature of the shooting. “In Shane’s Shoes” is a twenty-five-minute making-of, originally released in 2004 alongside the feature.
Also included is a very sweet, funny Shane Meadows short film, “Northern Soul”. Sharing two cast members with the main feature, but otherwise quite different from the violence and nihilism of Dead Man’s Shoes, it follows Mark Sherbet (Toby Kebbell), whose dreams of becoming Britain’s top professional wrestler have cost him his wife, his home and whatever dignity he may once have had. In mockumentary style, we follow the dream-chasing Mark as he actually manages to enter a travelling wrestling show, held in a local pub. Mark is small, skinny, doesn’t handle pain well, and most damningly of all, has never wrestled before. All of this makes the outcome tragicomically inevitable, the short playing as a nice deconstruction of the typical movie message about following one’s dreams no matter what.
Less pleasantly, there’s the phenomenally ugly animated music video for Danger Mouse’s “What U Sittin’ On?”, a song featured in the film.