Writer-director S. Craig Zahler is back with his third feature film, Dragged Across Concrete. Zahler is known for a very distinct style, with premises that set up for high-speed, ultra-violent action. But instead, while his films - the Western Bone Tomahawk and prison drama Brawl in Cell Block 99 - do include exploitation-style levels of violence, they only come at sporadic moments throughout the movie. In the moments not dedicated to gory violence, the films are dedicated to slow-burning character development, which will take up the majority of the film, leading to more explosive third acts. Dragged Across Concrete continues that trend and ups the ante of this style.
The film follows Mel Gibson and Vince Vaughn as police officers Ridgeman and Lurasetti, respectively, who rough up a suspect unnecessarily during a drug bust. The act is caught on video, with plans for a news story released to the public. In order to appease the media, their boss (Don Johnson) places them on unpaid suspension. Needing money due to Ridgeman’s ill wife and Lurasetti’s plans to propose to his fiancee, they turn to their criminal connections to keep money flowing in until the suspension ends. They wind up getting a tip about a bank robbery being orchestrated by Lorentz Vogelmann (Thomas Kretschmann) and follow him and his employees as they plan to rob him once they go through with their plan.
The film is marketed as mostly following Gibson and Vaughn, but is actually more of an ensemble piece, marrying up essentially three different story lines, the first being the police duo. The second story line does briefly follows Vogelmann randomly robbing convenience stores prior to the robbery and meeting up with associates in preparation for the robbery, while the third story line focuses on two childhood best friends (Tory Kittles and Michael Jai White) who are in need of money themselves and wind up getting hired by Vogelmann as getaway drivers for the robbery.
At nearly 160 minutes, there’s a lot going on in this movie, which ends up helping and hurting it at the same time. Like Zahler's previous two efforts, this film is less of a high-speed action movie, and more of a slow-burning crime drama, as the audience is left waiting for the robbery - the movie’s focal point - to occur and see what the consequences of it will be. In the meantime, the film devotes its first hour or so just fleshing out all the players ahead of time, so that they’re all seen as three-dimensional people.
Character drama is extremely valuable, and it’s absolutely beneficial for a character to have a solid backstory, so that they don’t come off as one-dimensional. And all the characters in this film feel like real people. However, the film tends to spend too much time with them. While it offers plenty, some scenes feel like they go on for too long at times. And there are some scenes that don’t feel needed at all. There are moments that could have been summed up in one or two lines of dialogue that instead get a whole scene devoted to them. And sometimes what happens in one scene, a character will then explain to another character the next time they’re seen together, and this happens quite frequently in many of the Ridgeman and Lurasetti-centric scenes early on.
The film tends to also focus on characters who didn’t serve that much to the overall plot. The scene features multiple B-list actors in what are essentially glorified cameos that really only needed a few lines of dialogue but instead appear in the movie for about five minutes or so longer than they needed to be. Don Johnson’s one scene as the captain cut have ended a couple of lines early, while Udo Kier pops up as a criminal connection of Ridgeman’s that gets a dragged out (no pun intended) exchange that outside of one important line of dialogue wasn’t all that interesting, while Jennifer Carpenter and Fred Melamed cameo as bank employees that gave them a solid backstory but completely detracted from the main story. It’s one thing to give each character a unique personality but when it just takes away from the film’s driving conflict, it would have benefited the film to have just not included these moments at all.
The film also tends to get semi-political at times, with lines of dialogue that make observations on police brutality and corruption within the police department. However, these lines of dialogue are merely that, and nothing more. Something will be said and the film moves on, making the statement feel like an offhand comment, as it never gets revisited at any other point throughout the movie. While it would be great for the movie to make a statement, it barely only scratches the surface of the points it wants to make, which leads one to wonder why even bother bringing any of this up at all.
Though for as many of the faults this movie has, its positives do vastly make up for the negatives. The film’s second half is easily a stark improvement over the first, with the turning point being the robbery scene. While the film doesn’t suddenly become a high-speed action movie, it does become much more engaging. The story becomes much more focused, and a lot of the characters’ struggles from early on in the film come full circle. While Zahler overdoes it with setting up all the players involved during the first hour, he does a great job bringing everything together in the film’s second half, thanks to the much tighter focus.
The action scenes are done very well, and when there’s a moment that’s meant to build up suspense, it’s felt immensely. There are plenty of stand-offs that take place, and what’s great is that no one is quick to make a move right away. Even when guns start firing, there will be a few times where characters take a step back once the action seems ready to ramp up, and the audience is left wondering who’s going to make the next move. And what’s great is that it doesn’t feel fickle or repetitive, seeing characters move then slow down. It feels like a plan is being carefully concocted and the audience is on edge because they can see the wheels turning, and are waiting for how the plan will be executed.
The acting is also pretty solid here. Gibson is easily one of the film’s highlights, playing essentially a more grounded, somewhat sinister version of Riggs from the Lethal Weapon series. He’s volatile and unpredictable, though he does so because he wants to make sure his family his protected. The pathos that he conveys as his love for his family clearly clouds his judgment is well-done, and makes for some of the better character drama in the film. Vaughn is a little less on point than Gibson, with some of his dialogue feeling clunky, which isn’t done any justice by his shoddy delivery. He doesn’t do a terrible job, but there’s little chemistry between him and Gibson, which works sometimes as they’re meant to be somewhat of a disjointed duo, but they don’t always play well off each other when they really need to.
Tory Kittles and Michael Jai White are also fantastic as the two getaway drivers, and if anything, it would have been nice to see more of them in the film’s first half rather than Gibson and Vaughn. These two are extremely believable as best friends, and the emotion conveyed in some of their scenes together feels completely natural, as they play off each other well. While their journey isn’t given as much attention, there’s a better sense of focus in their scenes. Meanwhile, Thomas Kretschmann is absolutely brutal as the heartless antagonist, and the threat of his presence can easily be felt thanks to his cold delivery.
Don’t go into Dragged Across Concrete expecting some action-packed cop drama, because that will only lead to disappointment. Instead, look forward to a character-driven crime movie, as this movie offers plenty of that. While the film is ambitious and hones in a little too much on fleshing out its characters during the first half of the film, it picks up immensely in the second half. While the first half isn’t necessarily bad, the second is ultimately better. Once the story picks up and focuses solely on the main conflict at hand, it’s extremely engrossing, filled with some brutal violence, slow-burning suspense, and great acting. It’s a test of patience, but those who stick with it will be greatly rewarded.
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