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Dragged Across Concrete
***
Dir: S.Craig Zahler
Starring: Mel Gibson, Vince Vaughn
(USA, 18, 2hrs 39mins)
An overlong but sporadically good, bleak heist thriller from the director of the superb western Bone Tomahawk. There’s also plenty of gut churning violence even if the story seems rather stretched.
Dragged Across Concrete boasts a lot of troubling white male racism and sexism, asking the viewer what the motivations are behind the film. Is it holding a mirror up to nature or endorsing its troubling lead characters?
Having Mel Gibson and Vince Vaughn inhabit the parts of racist policemen who nevertheless get the job done works on a further meta level; Gibson’s real-life outbursts and conservative attitudes are well known as is the outlook of Republican flag-waver Vaughn. Yet they both give very good performances here.
Gibson is Brett Ridgeman, a moustache-wielding cop with old-fashioned attitudes and a penchant for old-fashioned violence on criminals. He needs money to facilitate a move to a nicer neighbourhood for his MS suffering wife, played by Laurie Holden. Vaughn’s Anthony Lusaretti is a more ethical but still dodgy cop. He’s been suspended along with partner Gibson for excessive force by their world-weary boss, played by Don Johnson.
They get wind of an opportunity to intercept a bank heist and seize the stolen money for themselves. The robbery has been masterminded by ruthless hardcase Lorentz Vogelmann (a scary Thomas Kretschmann). Alongside this is Henry Johns (Tory Kittles), a career criminal edged back into the underworld as a getaway driver by childhood friend Biscuit (Michael Jai White). Also ensnared in the robbery is Jennifer Carpenter’s new mother going back to work for the first time on the day of the robbery.
Naturally, events do not go to plan with bloody results. Zahler’s dialogue crackles and whilst the film is often unpleasant it mostly grips. The female characters are however poorly served, but this is a B-movie with art-house trappings and a morally ambiguous agenda. Gibson gives his best performance in years, despite its squeamish undertones. Dragged Across Concrete is not for the impatient or faint-hearted, but is a bleak look at toxic masculinity.
words KEIRON SELF
Out now in cinemas
