DIRECTED BY Shane Meadows
STARRING Paddy Considine, Gary Stretch, Toby Kebbell
Opened October 1, Cert 18, 86 mins
Now that the ’90s trend for chucking Lottery cash at tax-break B-movies is over, we’re left with a stripped-down who’s who of great British directors. Jonathan Glazer’s in it. Guy Ritchie isn’t. Matthew Vaughn and Paul Greengrass are new entries. All great, but perhaps none are as worthy of your attention as Shane Meadows. With Dead Man’s Shoes, he brings the ’70s revenge movie cycle to rural Derbyshire and makes it look not only plausible but compelling.
Paddy Considine gives a career-best performance as a soldier returning to his home town for the first time in seven years to confront the bullies who (we learn in flashback) teased and exploited his simple-minded brother in increasingly sadistic ways. Initially it seems he’s just going to humiliate them. Staring at them in pubs, making up their faces while they’re asleep, spray-painting insults on their coats…the tone is similar to Meadows’ previous films. The baddies listen to gangsta rap in a knackered Citro