Wow, Dead mans shoes is such a big surprise... what they worked out a small budget is incredible and especially main actor and writer Paddy Considine should have been thrown at with Oscars for this performance as Richard.<br /><br />Dead Mans shoes might be summed up as a revenge movie but goes beyond that. Richard has a mentally challenged brother named Anthony who had trouble with a gang of drug dealers. We don't know why Richard is so obsessed with taking harsh revenge and it slowly unfolds towards the end when some of the thugs already were taken down. It starts slowly with Richard stalking some of the thugs, painting their leader a clown face in his sleep... but in one of the strongest sequences of the film when Richard is talking to the thugs about why he stalks them you can feel something bad is going to happen. In this scene Paddys facial expressions and disgusted, angry yet kind of deeply hurt way of talking is priceless. Overall his character appears kind of twisted... a cold avenger who uses what he learned in military and takes harsh and precise planned revenge (the "drug party" is some pretty heavy stuff although it doesn't use any gory shockers)... yet he seems deeply hurt and vulnerable which in the end turns out to be true and still the worst revenge on one of the thugs. The movie has some beautiful shots with the two brothers in the irish landscape... the opening is superb with the music and pictures and although the flashbacks often look a little cheap I don't care about these minor flaws... Dead Mans shoes is an intense experience and must see for fans of underground cinema. This movie works because its setup in a small town with backstreet gangsters who at times look ridiculous driving in their small car and hunting Richard is not the typical depiction of good/bad but rather different. The revenge is cold and often cynical... its those small scenes like Richard playing with a thugs kids with a knife that are pretty scary and of course the ultimate degradation of the totally doped up drug-dealers.... I loved this movie and am sure to watch more movies by/with Paddy Considine.