Writers/Directors Charles and Tom Guard deliver an incredibly timely action drama with their revenge thriller, Dead Shot.
When a border ambush goes wrong, a retired Irish paramilitary Michael (Morgan) witnesses the fatal shooting of his pregnant wife by British Sergeant, Tempest (Ameen). Now wounded, and presumed dead, he escapes, taking his revenge to the dark and paranoid streets of 1970’s London. Raw and suspenseful, Dead Shot is an adrenaline-fueled thriller that will leave audiences weighing up the true cost of revenge.
Based off the original screenplay by Ronan Bennett, Dead Shot stars Aml Ameen, Colin Morgan, with Mark Strong and Felicity Jones.
Check out our interview with Charles and Tom Guard:
DIRECTORS STATEMENT:
1975 was a dangerous time to be a Londoner. Following a relentless bombing and assassination campaign by the provisional IRA, the capital was in the grip of panic: streets were no longer safe and for the first time since the war, police officers were seen carrying guns in the capital.
Set over the course of that year, Dead Shot was a fantastic opportunity to make a revenge thriller in the breathless and gritty tradition of the 1970s; it was also an opportunity to fuse the genre with two moments in time.
The film maybe set in the 1970s, but its social and physical landscape feels shockingly close to today. Brexit Britain has placed border issues between Northern and Southern Ireland back into the spotlight after years of peace and ignited a national identity crisis that threatens to tear the United Kingdom apart.
And in our current, post-Covid downturn of bordered up high streets and surging inflation, we found a resounding echo of the strikes, power cuts and oil crash of the mid 1970s.
While much of the inspiration and texture of the film came from historical fact, we wanted to move the story away from partisan politics and focus the film on something more universal.
Dead Shot is about identity. It is about labels and names and how, in the wrong hands, those can quickly be repackaged and sold on as hate.
Tempest’s struggle to find himself in a country that appears to both need and reject him and Michael’s existential quest to break free from cycle of violence, feel uniquely contemporary problems: as vivid and pressing today as they were 50 years ago.
And the fact that their journeys expose them to arch manipulators like Holland and Keenan– specialists at instilling extreme ideologies into younger generations– also speaks very much to the political establishment of today.
In an era of high-end television and serialised stories, we hope Dead Shot– a fast paced 90 minute single narrative– can provide an authentic glimpse into a terrifying time in history and remind us that violence only ever leads to more violence.
— Charles Guard and Tom Guard
