Dead Shot (film)

Dead Shot is a 2023 British action thriller film written and directed by Tom and Charles Guard, based on an original screenplay by Ronan Bennett and inspired by the book The Road to Balcombe Street by Steven P. Moysey. The film stars Aml Ameen, Colin Morgan, Tom Vaughan-Lawlor, Sophia Brown, Máiréad Tyers, Mark Strong and Felicity Jones.

The film was released on Sky Cinema in the United Kingdom, Ireland and other territories on 12 May 2023.

Synopsis
A retired Irish paramilitary (Morgan) witnesses the shooting of his pregnant wife by a British soldier (Ameen) and escapes, wounded and presumed dead, to 1970s London to plot his revenge.

Production
In February 2018, it was reported that Jamie Dornan and Sam Claflin would star in the film, then titled Borderland, from a screenplay by Ronan Bennett, who wrote the first draft in 2012. In July 2020, Tom and Charles Guard, collectively known as the Guard Brothers, signed on to direct the film; they also co-wrote the screenplay with Bennett, which was inspired by the book The Road to Balcombe Street by Steven P. Moysey. That same month, John Boyega, Jack Reynor, Jodie Turner-Smith and Felicity Jones joined the cast, with Dornan and Claflin no longer attached. In April 2022, Aml Ameen, Colin Morgan, Sophia Brown and Mark Strong were added to the cast, while Boyega and Reynor exited the film.

The film is produced by Upper Street, Stylopik, Piecrust Pictures, Highland Midgie, Ingenious Media and Rocket Science, in association with Screen Scotland and LipSync Productions. Producers are Chris Coen, Brian Coffey, Rebecca Brown and Thorsten Schumacher. The film's new title was announced as Dead Shot in April 2023.

Filming was originally set to begin in March 2021 but was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Filming began in April 2022 in Edinburgh and Glasgow. Props and other items from the set were donated to local charities in Scotland after location filming ended.

Release
The film was released on Sky Cinema in the United Kingdom, Ireland and other territories on 12 May 2023. It was released in the United States in cinemas and on VOD and digital platforms on 18 August 2023 by Quiver Distribution.

Critical response
On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, Dead Shot holds an approval rating of 71% based on 24 reviews, with an average rating of 6/10.

Paul Whitington of the Irish Independent said the film does not deal in the "philosophical, nor does it offer the viewer much in the way of geopolitical context: it's a thriller, pure and simple, and a pretty efficient one at that." Leslie Felperin of The Guardian gave the film four stars, praising the period detail and the script, and commented that although "trajectory feels a bit preordained by dramatic convention, there are still stinging twists in store". Kevin Maher of The Times also awarded the film four stars and praised Ronan Bennett's script and called it a "gritty, breakneck B-movie that has moments of epic grandeur".