Random film review #2

For those that enjoyed my random review of Air Force One, I'm back to blogging again with my second random film review, this time its for:

DEAD MAN'S SHOE'S
Starring: Paddy Considine
Synopsis: A disaffected soldier  returns to his hometown to get even with the thugs who brutalized his mentally-challenged brother years ago.

It's hard to believe that this film is 7 years old, and that not many people know about it.  Sure, Kill Bill made revenge films colourful & retro (mainly down to the stylings of Tarantino), but Shane Meadows & Paddy Considine have made one of the most powerful & gritty modern revenge films going.  Expect swearing, northerners, swearing northerners, and a bit of blood lust, childish humour and some damn good acting!


Paddy Considine is Richard, back from the army with his little brother Anthony (who is slightly retarded) to take revenge of the group of rag-tag northerners who abused Anthony.  Within the 1st ten minutes we get to see that Richard is completely bat-shit crazy, by shouting the C word at one of the worst drug-dealers in celluloid history (who ironically has a worse mullet than Tom Hanks in the Da Vinci Code) then apologising profusely (and maybe showing some man-love tendencies).

Thankfully, this was just a ruse to get the drug dealer to run off & get followed to his mates, who are also really bad drug dealers,.  The three stooges (or Herbie, Soz & Tuf as the film confirms) are then witnessed to the finest gas mask baddie since...well, ever (if you know any other gas mask baddies then please let me know & I will edit this post).  This is Richard trying to disguise himself, despite telling the drug dealers who he is.

What happens next is the three stooges run out to try & get him, only to find in the 2 minutes they left their flat he has gone in, smashed it up, written something on the wall that I don't think is ever mentioned during the rest of the film, stealing all the drugs, and then buggering off through the front door & out into the street.  I'm not sure, but this may be the best cat burglar since the Pink Panther...  Cue some angry northern drug dealers running around trying to work out what happened.


They then drive round to their boss (in an open top beetle, which does not look cool for drug dealers by the way, but we are up north so this may be high class driving there, as they do tend to shove ferrets down their trousers - interesting fact, but thats the only thing I learnt from Last of the Summer Wine) only to find him painted up like a crack-whore clown.  You see, it turns out Richard has been annoyingly painting peoples hair & clothes instead of killing them.  Oh how he loves to torment his prey...

The drug dealers then take some time to remember, and we get the obligatory black & white flashback of the abuse (which involved punching Anthony with a frying pan, then getting him laid, so he at least got a good present at the end of it).  It could have been worse, I was expecting something a lot harder than that, but maybe thats cos of all the sick filth I've sat and watched over the years.

Now it's time for the payback to start, so Richard decides to break into a club the baddies all hangout in (whilst they are there as well!) then climb up the stairs and kill one of them on the toilet, before slipping out unnoticed (honestly, I'm waiting for Inspector Clouseau to appear).  The baddies then go out for a drive & come across Richard & try to scare him, but he won't have any of it, yet tells them where he is staying.


Cue the baddies going there with a rifle and just 1 bullet, and blowing the brains out of one of their own (Big Al, who surprisingly doesn't appear that big), before driving back to somewhere near town.  The car happens to break down (it was an open top beetle for flips sake, what else did you expect?) & one of the baddie runs off.  The other three then walk back to town.

At the bosses house they decide to check for Richard & search every room (apart from the pantry he was hiding in in their kitchen - how can you miss a gas-masked madman with a bag full of drugs & a pistol?).  Cue the funniest part of the film where someone stabs a SMALL BOX with a knife in case Richard was hiding in it.  Whoever wrote this deserves numerous plaudits for that cinematic moment of greatness, and this isn't sarcasm!

Richard then decides to lace their boiled kettle of water with more drugs than Charlie Sheen can take in a year, which one of the baddies pours into a Posh Noodle (they were obviously around in 2004).  Best way to take drugs?  Maybe.

Richard then pops out of his numerous hiding places whilst all the baddies are sky-high & makes them dance for him, before shooting one in the head, making anothers nose fly into his brain, & then showing poor Herbie his mate Tuf (who ran away earlier) hidden in a suitcase & sliced in half.  Richard then turns sensitive to get some info before stabbing Herbie to death.  Man, that party was a downer!

Finding the last baddie (who had actually left the baddies & became a goodie - don't fret, it wasn't Bill Oddie) he marches him to the spot where (thanks to a flashback) they got Anthony high on acid & left him to hang himself.  So it turns out that the brother was dead all along.  What a twist, we couldn't see that coming!  Actually I did.  I read the plot description on the box...oops, spoiler alert!

At this point, Richard admits he's bat-shit crazy & asks to be killed, before doing a very non-PC version of a mentally disabled person.  The baddie-come-goodie then tries to back away before Richard claims he will kill & eat his wife & kids, leaving the baddie-come-goodie to stab Richard, who dies in the same spot as his brother.  Then the baddie-come-goodie walks off into the morning sunset with blood on his hands.


The annoying thing here is that he parked his car the other side of where he was, so all I could say at the end of the film was "good film, but why didn't he go back to his car?"

This is, despite what I say, a fantastic film & well worth a watch.  For a British film that DOESN'T star Hugh Grant & ISN'T a romantic comedy, this is one of the best I've seen.  Paddy Considine is bat-shit crazy, & the bloke who plays his little brother is also damn good at pulling off mentally disabled.  Thank fupp he's moved onto much bigger & better things thanks to this, which was his first feature film.

As for my rating, this gets a total of 8 bat-shit crazy gasmasks out of 10.  I would bump it up but the little plot-holes & the crappy beetle bumped it down to just 8.  Either way you look at it, this is a damn good slice of revenge & blood rolled into a 90 minute film.

Hope this in some way made you decide to give this a watch.  Until next time, stay bat-shit crazy & keep an eye open for my next random film review...