Dead Man’s Shoes

Two brothers return to the birthplace they left eight years before. They are attached to each other, but very different: former marine Richard (Paddy Considine) is strong and focused, Anthony (Toby Kebbell) is younger, uncertain, and a little slow. Anthony admires his brother enormously, while Richard in turn worries about Anthony. They pitch camp in the hills near the town and reflect on shared memories. But they’re not here for nostalgic reasons: Richard wants revenge. He knows who he has to get and he knows where they live. The town he left years before is still dominated by the same group of dealers and crooks. Richard’s presence is enough to sow suspicion and paranoia. As the drugs gang gets smaller in size, we find out more about a terrible event in the past.Dead Man’s Shoes is regarded by many critics as Meadows’ best film so far. A film in the classical Peckinpah/Eastwood tradition, in which Paddy Considine (also co-writer, he can be seen at the festival in My Summer of Love as well) plays the role of his life as the angel of vengeance, one who achieves a dismally matter-of-fact identification for this viewer. Meadows provides an incomparable picture of the world of hard and occasionally mean suckers with a talent for bullshit. The dialogues are superior, the characters convincing, the mood threatening, the music hip, the violence not for children. (EH)