DEAD MAN’S SHOES 18

Look back in anger…

2004 ★★★★★ OUT 15 SEPTEMBER CINEMAS

‘What are we looking at? It’s not your concern…’

Returning to cinemas to mark its 20th anniversary, Shane Meadows’ dog-eared revenge thriller has touched many pained hearts since its initial release – like Scorsese’s Taxi Driver, it’s a film that people gravitate to, connecting with its loneliness and anger and (blood)thirst to make things right.

Reteaming with his college pal Meadows after A Room for Romeo Brass, Paddy Considine is electric as ex-squaddie Richard, back in his Midlands village to exact righteous revenge on the ragtag gang of pushers who abused and humiliated his vulnerable younger brother, Anthony (Toby Kebbell). It’s an archetypal premise, riffing on any number of westerns (Meadows’ previous film was Once Upon a Time in the Midlands), but the man from Uttoxeter weaves in social realism, pastoral lyricism, country music, rambunctious comedy and some of the tropes and iconography of slasher movies to make something special: a fable that’s also brutally real, fuelled as it is by the horrific bullying that Meadows witnessed in his youth, and his own sexual abuse, aged nine, by an older boy.

Meadows’ skill with actors is very much in evidence, as is his concern with working-class characters and small-town masculine values. His following film, This Is England, would operate on a bigger canvas and apply a little more polish, but Dead Man’s Shoes, to use Meadows’ own words, has ‘something in its veins’.

THE VERDICT Don’t forget your gas mask: you’ll be reeling and light-headed after seeing this on the big screen.

TIME BANDITS PG

Historical hijinks…

1981 ★★★★✩ OUT NOW 4K UHD

EXTRAS ★★★★★ Featurettes, Interviews, Poster, Booklet

One of the things the studios didn’t like about the film,’ recalls Time Bandits helmer Terry Gilliam, ‘they said, “Who is the audience?” and I said, “It’s for everybody.” That concept was beyond them at that time – it has to be for a specific market: children, teenagers, adults. And I said, “No. It works on every level.”’

The filmmaker was proved right when his Python-esque fantasy – about a young boy whisked off on historical adventures – opened at number one at the US box office, staying there for several weeks. Today, with Taika Waititi and Jemaine Clement’s TV remake waiting in the wings at Apple, what better time to revisit Gilliam’s original? Making its UHD debut with a meticulous 4K restoration (the film’s second makeover at the hands of Arrow Video, having previously been restored at 2K for its 2013 Blu-ray), the filmmaker’s narratively scattershot but thrillingly imaginative and raucously entertaining romp has never looked so good before.

If there’s one complaint, it’s that this disc release is just a 4K upgrade of Arrow’s earlier Blu-ray. Sadly, Criterion’s filmmaker commentary remains stubbornly exclusive to that label’s US discs. As interesting as Arrow’s interviews with Gilliam, co-writer Michael Palin and others are, there’s surely more to be said about the making of this irreverent cult classic.

THE VERDICT One of Gilliam’s best, now looking even better. Just don’t expect any new extras…