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Dead Man's Shoes
Mixed or average reviews
Based on 14 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 15 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie >
Movie Info
Genre(s): Drama | Foreign | Suspense/Thriller
Written by:
Shane Meadows
Paddy Considine
Paul Fraser (additional material)
Directed by: Shane Meadows
Release Date:
Theatrical: May 12, 2006
DVD: September 5, 2006
Running Time: 90 minutes, Color
Origin: UK
Summary
RATING: Not Rated
Starring Paddy Considine, Gary Stretch, Toby Kebbell, Neil Bell, and Stuart Wolfenden
A genre-defying film blending horror, supernatural elements, comedy, and social realism. Set in a Midlands village, it explores the underbelly of contemporary rural Britain in communities where crime is unchecked and drugs, intimidation, and power games are blandly accepted as the fabric of daily life. (Magnolia Pictures)
Also On Metacritic
FILM: A Room for Romeo Brass One Upon a Time in the Midlands
Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database Official Studio Site
What The Critics Said
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
The Onion (A.V. Club) Noel Murray
For all Dead Man's Shoes' well-paced, well-observed boondocks melodrama, its premise seems simultaneously slender and overheated.
Read Full Review >Film Threat Felix Vasques Jr.
An original, complex, and utterly gruesome revenge parable, and never portrays its characters as black and white. Considine handles his performance like a pro, and only adds to the pure skill behind it.
Read Full Review >New York Daily News Jami Bernard
This is no simplistic vigilante movie. Like Park Chan-wook's "Vengeance" trilogy, it explores the nature of the beast of revenge, leaving the audience in a sweat of dread.
Read Full Review >The New York Times Laura Kern
The always fantastic Paddy Considine evokes both sensitivity and explosiveness.
Read Full Review >Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy
Meadows loses control as he goes along, veering into assorted noodling and sacrificing the knife's-edge clarity of the early going for something arty and artificial.
Read Full Review >New York Post Lou Lumenick
Very slowly builds to a powerful climax for this arty cross between "Straw Dogs" and "First Blood."
Read Full Review >TV Guide Maitland McDonagh
Though the story is formulaic, the bleakly naturalistic performances give it an uncomfortable sting.
Read Full Review >Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum
The imagery is exotically grungy and jumbled by flashback, but in the end, the picture's more pulp than juice.
Read Full Review >The Hollywood Reporter Ray Bennett
The film is filled with deeply unpleasant and stupid people whose vapid speech is largely incomprehensible due to thick regional accents.
Read Full Review >Variety Derek Elley
Film plays as a quirky Brit riff on everything from U.S. slasher pics to revenge oaters but without Meadows' usual psychological complexity.
Read Full Review >Village Voice Luke Y. Thompson
Dead Man's Shoes is all about revenge, but in trying to be one of those serious revenge films that questions violence while indulging in it, it manages to keep virtually all the characters unsympathetic and uninteresting.
Read Full Review >Chicago Reader J.R. Jones
A shocking revelation near the end explains the soldier's nihilistic rage but simultaneously tears a gigantic hole in the plot, leaving little to admire but Considine's typically penetrating performance.
Read Full Review >LA Weekly Ella Taylor
Like so many movies of its kind, Dead Man's Shoes gets hopelessly lost in vicious process, and so loses all sight of anything you might optimistically call insight.
Read Full Review >Chicago Tribune Jessica Reaves
There are flashes of grim humor interspersed with the murders, but not enough wit to elevate this movie beyond its primary identity: grisly revenge fantasy.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 7.6 (out of 10) based on 15 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Rich R. gave it a10:
Are you kidding? This is a great film, made even greater because Paddy Considine (one of the best actors in the English language, who stole the show in In America) is in it. Then, to top it off, Toby Kebbell, who is in Control, the Ian Curtis movie? This is a stone great film. Perfectly paced, perfectly acted and shot, perfectly written. Paddy should get more lead parts. Few actors can show as much emotion, menace, and vulnerability.
Neil F. gave it a10:
I'm sorry but 52% is shocking. This is one of the finest, most realistic gritty depictions of modern Brittish culture.
Benji gave it a9:
I'm disappointed in the state of these reviews, as with everywhere else. The film is without a doubt one of the most emotionally powerful films with this level of grim violence that I've ever seen. It forces you to think as it throws you from being right behind the protagonist (the truly brilliant Considine) to being sympathetic to the criminals who tortured his brother. The critics over the pond in the US need to see past difficult accents and appreciate the intensity of what's being said and demanded of the viewer. Plenty of US made films are no more comprehensible due to regional accents, but they seem to believe American is "the standard".
Rose gave it a9:
I don't think I've ever seen reviews on Metacritic so heavily influenced by cultural diferences. I can't believe the score this film got, although I think it may be largely because of the American audience. Dead Man's Shoes is uttely unusual, well made, superbly acted and brutally affecting. Just because it is unlike the usual predictable trite Hollywood turns out, it does not make it a 'bland English Death Wish'!
Darren G. gave it an8:
Excellent little film. Its about time it hit dvd.
Dan W. gave it a9:
I'm amazed how many critics appear not to have "got" this film. The premise is fairly straight and simple, but its executed perfectly, with brilliantly believable, well acted characters all round. I found the gang members' unfamiliarity with death particularly well observed and portrayed - its not like drug dealers are constantly popping caps in heads - they exist in their own little world of their own creation, just like everyone and when that bubble is broken, they'll feel just as vulnerable as anyone else. The subject of Britishness looms large when considering this film, and is obviously the reason so many got the wrong end of the stick. For me, its the first "British Movie" I've watched in which the director feels no need to draw attention to, or emphasise the fact that its set in England. Noone hams up their accent in front of the camera for once and the script doesn't go to pointless lengths to include pub references.
Mase gave it a5:
Not nearly as vicious as people might leave you to believe. Sort of a bland English Death Wish. Spends way to much time with the dopey hood characters and too little with Paddy. Makes you want to the characters to die because they are annoying and not because they abused a mentally challenged boy.
