Dir: Shane Meadows. UK.2004. 90mins
Dead Man’s Shoes is billed as a return to basics
for Shane Meadows after the relative disappointment of his last feature, Once
Upon A Time In The Midlands. Semi-improvised, this is a project striving
after the raw edge and dynamism which characterized Meadows’ shorts (for
instance, Where’s The Money, Ronnie’)
His ability to mix humour, violence and lyricism remains unimpaired, but
Dead Man’s Shoes is a frustrating mish-mash of different genre elements
(horror film, revenge western, social realist drama) which is ultimately let
down by its own posturing and machismo.
Meadows is a paradox: a populist filmmaker cherished by critics and
festival programmers but whose work is yet to find a wide audience. 24:7,
his debut feature and still arguably his most accomplished film, sold widely in
the international marketplace, but then under performed at the box-office both
in Britain and abroad.
His two subsequent features, A Room For Romeo Brass and Once
Upon A Time, like wise garnered reasonable reviews without making much
money. There is little evidence that Meadows’ latest effort will buck the
trend.
Though it will show up on the festival circuit - it plays both Venice
and Toronto among others after its premiere at Edinburgh - international
distributors may well keep their distance unless the film shows some legs in
the British market (where it is being released by Optimum in October). Whether
it will do so is a moot point. The downbeat box office fate of Bille
Eltringham’s This Is Not A Love Song, another intense, low-budget
British drama that won plaudits on the festival circuit, suggests that this may
be a tricky sell at home as well as abroad.
As ever with Meadows, the action is set in the Midlands. The story
begins in striking fashion (Meadowshas always had an eye for a shot) with two
silhouetted figures seen on the horizon. One is Richard (Considine), a bearded,
enigmatic army veteran, the other his sweet-natured but simple-minded brother
Anthony (Toby Kebell) to whom he is devoted.
As in John Sturges’ celebrated modern-day western, Bad Day At Black
Rock, they are coming to a town where the locals are harboring a very
guilty secret. In the years that Richard was away with the army, Anthony was
taunted, humiliated and physically abused by Sonny (played by ex-professional
boxer, Gary Stretch), the local drug dealer, and his motley crew of thugs. Now
Richard wants revenge.
What makes the film so disconcerting are the random shifts in tone.
Early on, while the lads in Sonny’s gang mislay drugs, read articles in porno
mags and mooch about their flats, the mood is comic. There’s a deadpan humour
familiar to British audiences from comedian Steve Coogan’s Paul Calf sketches
or indeed from Meadows’ mini-feature Small Time. The protagonists may be
feckless petty criminals, but they’re also likable and self-mocking types,
trying to while away the boredom of life in a depressed Midlands town.
Once Richard gets down to business, the playfulness rapidly disappears.
We learn in gruelling flashbacks just how badly Anthony was abused. It also
becomes apparent that Richard is an angel of death, determined to kill his
brother’s tormentors in as sadistic away as possible. All of a sudden, as the
bloodletting begins in earnest, the film lurches off into Grand Guignol, Texas
Chainsaw-style territory.
At times, the film seems like a boys’ own wish fulfillment fantasy.
(With the exception of Shirley Henderson in Once Upon A Time In The Midlands,
Meadows’ films feature few strong female characters.) There are far fewer of
the lyrical interludes which are found in the director’s earlier films - for
instance, the beautiful, slow-motion sequence of Bob Hoskins’ boxing trainer
dancing a waltz with his elderly aunt in 24:7. The quietest moments here
- notably the scenes between Richard and his brother hiding away in the
countryside, reminiscing about old times - are the most affecting, but they’re
in short supply.
The attitude toward character is often confusing. Small-time hustlers
like Herbie (StuartWolfenden), Soz (Neil Bell) and Tuff (Paul Sadot), who
initially seemed comic and sympathetic, are transformed into one-dimensional
villains waiting the irturn to be bumped off. Richard torments them, feeds them
drugs and prolongs their deaths. His behavior toward them is so violent and
excessive - and their treatment of Anthony so repellent - that we’re left with
a narrative in which all the protagonists seem equally loathsome.
Though Dead Man’s Shoes purports to explore “the underbelly of
contemporary rural Britain, ”Meadows isn’t really interested in exploring the
reality of life in a provincial town. He portrays a world in which half-a-dozen
people in a small-knit community can be killed without the neighbors raising
the alarm or the police intervening.
Considine brings menace and quiet intensity to the role of Richard,
playing him as a Midlands version of Clint Eastwood’s high plains drifter. A
final reel twist provides a belated explanation as to why he behaves with such
viciousness, but by then, he is likely to have forfeited the sympathies of most
spectators.
Individual sequences are powerful, comic and touching by turns - they
just don’t hang together with any coherence. The filmmakers shot Dead Man’s Shoes
at break neck pace, using real locations, adding dialogue and re-writing the
screenplay as they went along. Maybe such an approach was liberating but it
surely also explains why the film so often feels inchoate and unstructured.
For several years now, Meadows has been touted as “the great Brit hope.”
Here, though, as with Once Upon A Time In The Midlands, there is a
dispiriting sense that he is still marking time.
Prod
cos:Warp Films, FilmFour, East Midlands Media Investments
UK dist:Optimum
Releasing
Int’l sales:Element X,(44) 20 73171440
Exec prods:Peter
Carlton, WillClarke, Steve Beckett
Prod:Mark Herbert
Co-prod:Louise
Knight
Scr:Paddy Considine, ShaneMeadows
Cine:Danny Cohen
Ed:Chris
Wyatt
Main cast:Paddy Considine, GaryStretch, Toby Keb, Stuart Wolfenden,
Neil Bell, Paul Sadot
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