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Dragged Across Concrete

Dragged Across Concrete

Movie · 2018 · 15 people

S. Craig Zahler's third feature, after Bone Tomahawk and Brawl in Cell Block 99, is Dragged Across Concrete. He wrote and directed this neo-noir crime thriller, which came out in 2018. A US-Canadian co-production of 158 minutes, it opened in Turkey as Adaletsiz on 10 May 2019. Mel Gibson and Vince Vaughn lead a cast that also includes Tory Kittles, Michael Jai White, Jennifer Carpenter, Laurie Holden, Thomas Kretschmann and Udo Kier.

Veteran Brett Ridgeman (Gibson) is a weary cop willing to risk everything for justice. When footage of him and his partner Anthony Lurasetti (Vaughn) roughing up a suspect reaches the media, both are suspended. Broke, they enter the criminal underworld and become entangled in a robbery planned by a professional thief, which also involves two childhood friends, one just out of prison. Laurie Holden plays Brett's wife Melanie.

Vaughn recommended Zahler to Gibson, with whom he had worked on Hacksaw Ridge. Filming took place in Vancouver from July to September 2017 on a $15 million budget. The film premiered at the 75th Venice Film Festival on 3 September 2018 and had a limited theatrical and video-on-demand release from Summit Entertainment on 22 March 2019. Reviews were mixed to positive, praising Gibson's performance and the dark tone but faulting the length and violence.

DirectorSteven Craig Zahler

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Cast

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Udo Kier Udo Kier Actor · died at 81 Thomas Kretschmann Thomas Kretschmann Actor · 64 years old Mel Gibson Vince Vaughn Tory Kittles Michael Jai White Jennifer Carpenter Laurie Holden Fred Melamed Tattiawna Jones Myles Truitt Vanessa Bell Calloway Noel Guglielmi Don Johnson Richard Newman

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Through different eyes

Action & Thriller Fan Puts pace, tension and set pieces first; little patience for slow drama.

Mel Gibson and Vince Vaughn, two suspended cops and a planned robbery: on paper it's exactly my kind of recipe. The tension is real, and the violence is brutal and hits hard when it comes. But 158 minutes! The film is never in a hurry, scenes stretch on and on, and for anyone impatient that running time is a serious test. Stick with it and it pays off; if you want a fast-moving cop thriller, this isn't it.

Cinephile Looks at script, editing and directing choices; keeps a distance from formula films.

Zahler's third feature, after Bone Tomahawk and Brawl in Cell Block 99, is a neo-noir that makes no secret of its slow pace. The 158-minute running time looks like a deliberate choice: the film wants the audience to feel its characters' weariness and waiting. Gibson's performance, praised by critics, carries the weight of a worn-down man, and his pairing with Vaughn finds a dry, ironic rhythm. But that rhythm doesn't justify itself in every scene; the editing could have been much tighter, and the violence at times tips from serving the story into spectacle. For a patient viewer who likes dark atmosphere it's a bold piece of work, but it isn't for everyone.

History & Society Lens Asks about the period, the social background and what the work reflects.

The film opens with footage of two cops roughing up a suspect leaking to the media, a starting point that touches a current debate about how recordings shape policing. Brett and Anthony turning to crime once they are out of work and out of money also shows the economic desperation of people pushed out of an institution. Yet the film uses these social questions more as the ground for a crime story than as something to explore in depth, and how much distance it keeps from its protagonists is open to debate. The reservations about excessive violence that stood out in reviews shouldn't be ignored either.

These are not reader reviews: they are short editorial takes written from different viewer perspectives with AI assistance. Reader reviews are below.

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