Dead Man's Shoes

Aroview: Brutal and atmospheric, but a tad reductive, this revenge drama stars Paddy Considine as a demobbed soldier returning to his scungy North England hometown to enact some rough justice on the drug dealers who tormented his mentally-handicapped younger brother while he was away.

With a list of victims being dispatched in various nasty ways, intercut with flashbacks to a grim back-story, this couples an accomplished sense of dread to dir. Meadows' casually authentic characterisations (of the kind featured in SMALL TIME and TWENTYFOUR SEVEN). Unfortunately the story jetisons the warm dimensions of his very best work for a more blunt dramaturgy.

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