Review: Dragged Across Concrete

Mel Gibson and his younger partner Vince Vaughn are a couple of cops with an old school, non-PC mentality, living in a new school, very PC world. Thus, their strong-arm tactics earn them a suspension without pay, as video evidence proves a bad look for the department. Gibson also gets a lecture from his former partner now boss (Don Johnson), asking him to think about why he’s sitting where he is and why Gibson is still in the same position after many years. Pissed off and low on funds, Gibson gets to thinking about how he and Vaughn (set to propose to his African-American girlfriend) might make some quick cash. Meanwhile, fresh out of prison Tory Kittles is also hoping to acquire some funds to help get himself and his disabled brother a better life. He agrees to become a getaway driver for an upcoming heist. Michael Jai White, Thomas Kretschmann, and Jennifer Carpenter play criminal acquaintances and an anxious bank employee respectively. Laurie Holden plays Gibson’s former cop wife who has MS, and Udo Kier appears briefly as a mob contact of Gibson’s.

 

I’m not entirely immune to enjoying films made with a non-PC, rather right-wing aesthetic, and I am usually able to keep off-screen Mel Gibson and on-screen Mel Gibson pretty separate. A good movie is a good movie, right? So, when I tell you that this edgy cop movie from writer-director S. Craig Zahler didn’t do much for me, rest assured it’s because I just didn’t think it was especially interesting or well-made. In fact, it feels like Zahler wants to make a right-wing cop drama at epic length, but can’t quite bring himself to go the whole hog with it. Whatever the politics of the film or its participants (For what it’s worth Zahler, somewhat like Peter Berg, claims to not be interested in making political films that lean one way or the other), it’s sluggish in the extreme and rather muddied and messy. For instance, it takes seemingly forever for the two main storylines to converge, leaving you twiddling your thumbs through most of Tory Kittles’ scenes.

 

After this and the overrated horror-western hybrid “Bone Tomahawk”, perhaps I’m just not going to be a S. Craig Zahler fan. At least “Bone Tomahawk”, as frustratingly slow as it was, had some merit in its “The Searchers”-goes-horror premise. It was massively disappointing, but far from terrible. This is just a dull, unfocussed mess that probably wants but fails to be an effective David Ayer or Joe Carnahan gritty corrupt cop type of thing. It’s nowhere near as effective as “Narc” or “Dark Blue”. Whatever Zahler thinks he’s achieving here, he doesn’t. At least not for me, it’s alternately murky and heavy-handed. Oooh, Vince has a non-white girlfriend. How complex and shaded…or not.

 

The film is well-acted for the most part, with Don Johnson and Tory Kittles in particular doing some of their best work to date. It’s largely the Kittles character that gives this film a tiny bit more than just an anti-PC, Conservative vibe that one might be expecting. Having said that, I don’t think Kittles’ character is ultimately all that necessary to the plot. The film would’ve been a bit leaner and meaner (and possibly less murky) without him. Certainly it would’ve felt far more focussed without him. One of the other characters could’ve easily been the getaway driver, surely. But no, Zahler thinks he’s Sergio Leone meets Michael Mann here and tries to give us three main protagonists/anti-hero characters and balloons the film out to about 2 and a half hours. With a lot less style than Leone and no Ennio Morricone.

 

Mel Gibson and Vince Vaughn work well together, with the latter in particular being a good fit for the more light-hearted, less world-weary of the pair. Sadly, he’s saddled with a cliché out of a 40s war movie, making his trajectory entirely transparent. Gibson has zero problems convincing as the old school, weary cop, though I should point out that whilst not a good guy, he’s not exactly the most racist vile scum you might be expecting based on the subject and Gibson’s casting in the role. He’s probably racist, but for the most part just a strong-arm, ‘by any means necessary’ kinda guy in a world where that’s no longer professionally acceptable. I wouldn’t mind seeing Gibson and Vaughn in something closer to a “Lethal Weapon” type of jocular action entertainment, than this dour affair. Michael Jai White gets thoroughly wasted, but is snaky-cool when given the chance as Kittles’ no-good childhood buddy. The far less charismatic but usually solid Thomas Kretschmann is poorly underused as well. He’s OK, it’s just that Zahler isn’t remotely interested in his character. He barely even has one. Laurie Holden is well-cast and fine enough as Gibson’s wife, but her ‘I never thought I was racist until I moved here’ dialogue is clichéd and thoroughly inorganic. Meanwhile, there are at least two terrible performances. Poor Jennifer Carpenter is saddled with a terribly written role, and the quite talented actress appears to have been horribly misdirected by Zahler. I can’t even begin to work out what the hell the idea was there, her first scene in particular is horribly botched by Zahler and the actress. Similarly, Fred Melamed gives a bizarre and stupid performance that seems to have been brought in from someone else’s movie with an entirely different tone.

 

Talk about a great title in search of a fitting film to go with it. A fairly dull, overlong, rambling mess of a film that isn’t anywhere near the nasty, violent fun as its schlocky B-movie title might suggest. Writer-director Zahler seems to have loftier aims than that, but hasn’t a clue how to pull it all off, and he’s not giving us anything new anyway. Most of the acting is solid, but the material is alternately murky and obvious, and told at a snail’s pace. Dirty cops committing a crime. It could’ve been good, trashy fun, especially with a sense of humour and focus. In Zahler’s hands it’s empty, rambling, clichéd, and a bit confused. Zahler’s fans might get more out of this than I did (A lot of online critics seemed to have been wowed by it). I found it all rather shrug-worthy.

 

Rating: C