Dragged Across Concrete

Make no mis­take: S Craig Zahler knows exact­ly what he’s doing. The cast­ing of Aussie erst­while exile Mel Gib­son as a racist cop accused of police bru­tal­i­ty in Dragged Across Con­crete is no coin­ci­dence, as cal­cu­lat­ed as the cast­ing of Don John­son as his boss, who says, straight-faced and world-weary, ear­ly on in the film, ​“The enter­tain­ment indus­try needs vil­lains.” Gib­son may have been wel­comed back into the Hol­ly­wood fold by virtue of his cel­e­brat­ed 2016 anti-war dra­ma Hack­saw Ridge, but his turn in Zahler’s bleak new thriller makes Gibson’s past indis­cre­tions right­ful­ly hard to ignore.

Brett Ridge­man (Gib­son) has failed to move with the times. He’s push­ing 60 and has been pound­ing the pave­ment as a detec­tive in the crime-rid­den town of Bul­wark for close to 40 years. It’s this refusal to under­stand the basic ways in which the world has changed since the ​’70s which sees Ridge­man and his part­ner Antho­ny Luraset­ti (Vince Vaughn) sus­pend­ed with­out pay after a video of them inter­ro­gat­ing a sus­pect is leaked to the press.

Rather than reeval­u­ate his world­view, Ridge­man decides to redress the imbal­ance in the world by rob­bing the rob­bers to sup­port his dis­abled wife and bul­lied daugh­ter. Luraset­ti, mean­while, has been work­ing up the nerve to pro­pose to his girl­friend Denise (Tat­ti­aw­na Jones) and a quick pay­day might ease the finan­cial strain. Unfor­tu­nate­ly for our crooked cops, a tip from eccen­tric Euro­pean mob­ster Friedrich (Udo Kier, who else) leads them down a one-way street to hell. Spoil­er alert: crime doesn’t pay.

While Lethal Weapon and Mia­mi Vice are obvi­ous points of ref­er­ence and the Zahler-com­posed sound­track (ft. The O’Jays) gives every­thing a retro flavour, you can’t ignore the influ­ence of Sid­ney Lumet’s Dog Day After­noon on an out­stand­ing and stom­ach-churn­ing heist sequence, and Zahler brings his usu­al stylised flair to pro­ceed­ings, most notice­able in the excep­tion­al­ly glib script.

For those who sur­vived Bone Tom­a­hawk and Brawl in Cell Block 99 it won’t come as any sur­prise, but in Zahler’s riff on the cop genre, the jux­ta­po­si­tion between Shake­speare­an turn of phrase and heart­less ultra­vi­o­lence is par­tic­u­lar­ly effective.

A strong sup­port­ing cast works to Zahler’s advan­tage too. Tory Kit­tles is excel­lent as recent­ly released con Hen­ry, who – much like Ridge­man – is just try­ing to pro­vide for his fam­i­ly and gets in way over his head, while Michael Jai White has a mem­o­rable moment as his asso­ciate, Bis­cuit. Zahler alum­ni Jen­nifer Car­pen­ter and Fred Melamed also turn up in small but cher­ish­able roles, but it’s Gibson’s film to com­mand, and he does a sol­id job as a dis­tinct­ly uncharm­ing rel­ic from polic­ing past. Vaughn has less to do this time around than he did in his barn­storm­ing Brawl per­for­mance, oth­er than eat a sand­wich with strange­ly com­pelling intensity.

There’s a bru­tal­i­ty and futil­i­ty about the whole affair, and giv­en its 160-minute run­time, it’s pun­ish­ing in every sense of the word, par­tic­u­lar­ly towards its few female char­ac­ters. Yet it’s a fas­ci­nat­ing reflec­tion on the con­ser­v­a­tive white patri­archy that rules Amer­i­ca, in par­tic­u­lar how impo­tent its unique aggres­sion feels in the present day. Zahler con­stant­ly dares us not to watch his films with a wry grin – but endur­ing this one pays dividends.