In close to 30 years of filmmaking, Nottingham-based Shane Meadows has created an eclectic and powerful body of work in which the standout remains This Is England (2006) and its trilogy of television sequels. The revenge thriller Dead Man’s Shoes, now reissued digitally, saw him reunite with the estimable Paddy Considine, who made his film debut in Meadows’s A Room for Romeo Brass (1999). Richard (Considine) returns to his home town in the Peak District following a spell in the army, and vows to punish the group of local drug dealers responsible for the abuse of his mentally impaired brother, Anthony (Toby Kebbell). Richard’s barely-contained rage soon finds full expression as he moves from menace to violent and implacable retribution as he methodically picks his targets off, one by one. Meadows’s film revels in unspooling genre conventions in these unlikely surroundings.

Notes by Kevin Coyne