Loss, grief and broth­er­hood in Shane Mead­ows’ Dead Man’s Shoes

In the open­ing scene of Shane Mead­ows’ 2004 film Dead Man’s Shoes, we see two men walk­ing through a des­o­late rur­al land­scape, across open fields under a lead­en sky, towards an old desert­ed farm on the hillside.

Inter­spersed are scenes from old fam­i­ly videos. There are snap­shots of Christ­mases and birth­days and fun days out. Joy­ful fam­i­ly mem­o­ries cap­tured on fad­ing film. Two broth­ers still unit­ed, but with a dark­ness descending.

When it was first released, Dead Man’s Shoes was billed as a vio­lent psy­cho­log­i­cal thriller with the feel of a low-bud­get British west­ern; a man return­ing to his home­town to exact revenge against those who have wronged him. Mead­ows wears his influ­ences on his sleeve, pay­ing homage to clas­sic ​’70s thrillers like Straw Dogs, while the DIY deliv­er­ance of a scorned ser­vice­man also recalls First Blood. There is no doubt that ret­ri­bu­tion looms large, but this is also a film about loss, the extreme grief felt when a loved one is sud­den­ly taken.

Pad­dy Con­si­dine plays Richard, an ex-Para who comes home to Mat­lock in rur­al Der­byshire after sev­er­al years away. He’s seek­ing ret­ri­bu­tion against a gang of local crim­i­nals for a trag­ic inci­dent involv­ing his vul­ner­a­ble younger broth­er Antho­ny (Tony Kebbell), who has learn­ing difficulties.

Richard is angry, wired and deter­mined. He walks famil­iar streets, but the qui­et nor­mal­cy of this small north­ern town is at odds with his mood. He talks of evil, sin and ret­ri­bu­tion. It’s his duty to make the gang pay for what they did to his broth­er. Flash­backs in grainy black-and-white are inter­wo­ven through­out the film; unhap­py reminders of Antho­ny being cru­el­ly humiliated.

The gang is led by Son­ny, played by ex-box­er Gary Stretch. He’s a small-time crook in a dirty vest, fol­lowed by a rogu­ish crew of no-hop­ers. Their mediocre lives are played out in squalid flats sur­round­ed by emp­ty Pot Noo­dles and porn. They sit around doing noth­ing, like bored kids, days full of fags and booze and card games. Deals are done with cash exchanged in tat­ty brown envelopes. They talk big but dri­ve around town in a beat­en up old Cit­roën 2CV.

Richard appears and dis­ap­pears like a ghost in a gas mask. He humil­i­ates the gang with juve­nile tricks which leave them look­ing like clowns. But his actions become increas­ing­ly more vio­lent as one by one the men are tak­en out. Vengeance is served cold on plain sub­ur­ban streets. ​“It’s hard los­ing some­one close to you, isn’t it?” Richard says calm­ly to one of the men as he shows him the body of his best friend.

The tex­ture of the film changes when we see the broth­ers togeth­er. It feels like Richard and Antho­ny are just on a camp­ing adven­ture out in the wilder­ness. Con­ver­sa­tions are han­dled with care by Richard. He shel­ters his broth­er from see­ing the vio­lence he inflicts on his behalf, instead he’s, ​“Just sort­ing a bit of busi­ness in town.”

In one par­tic­u­lar­ly poignant scene, they sit back to back in a cou­ple of aban­doned trac­tor tyres, talk­ing about child­hood. Antho­ny has always idolised his broth­er. The inno­cence of their rela­tion­ship, and the look of love on Richard’s face as he recalls hap­pi­er times, in sharp con­trast with his actions.

We learn, of course, that Antho­ny is with Richard only in mem­o­ry – his grief so strong that he takes Antho­ny every­where with him; the weight of his remorse as heavy as the army kit bag he car­ries on his back.

The grief pours out of him in the film’s final stages, dur­ing the con­fronta­tion with Mark, the last gang mem­ber stand­ing. Mark is a father now, a fam­i­ly man, and Richard can’t bring him­self to exe­cute him. Instead we wit­ness Richard’s anguish as he tries to make sense of what he’s done, and the guilt he feels for not being there for his brother.

A heart-break­ing ques­tion reveals Richard’s inner tor­ment: ​“Was he call­ing for me, when you tor­tured him? Was he scream­ing my name?” ​“He still is,” comes the reply, con­firm­ing the haunt­ing ever-pres­ence of Anthony.

There is trag­ic redemp­tion in not car­ry­ing out the final sac­ri­fice. Instead, Richard begs Mark to let him lie with his broth­er; he just wants it all to stop. The final dra­mat­ic release of his grief is a blessing.

Dead Man’s Shoes is a moral­i­ty play. When faced with tragedy and grief, a man resorts to the law of the land, as in medieval times. His reac­tions become pri­mal. This is a film about a brother’s loss and the raw emo­tions dri­ving him. It shows how in grief, the dark recess­es of a man’s mind can extract the jus­ti­fi­ca­tion for his actions. Rage and thirst for revenge replac­ing acqui­es­cence because he can’t fig­ure out how to feel.