Dragged Across Concrete
Dir: S. Craig Zahler
2019
*****
S. Craig Zahler is fast becoming one of my favourite
directors. Following his awesome debut Bone Tomahawk and the brilliant Block 99
comes Dragged Across Concrete, which is every bit as brutal as it sounds.
Indeed, the title is a clue of what to expect but this really isn’t the film
you might think it is. There are essentially three different stories at play
with a little sub-story thrown in for good measure. While Bone Tomahawk was
straight to DVD and Block 99 received limited release, it was thought that
Zahler had since proven himself and that Dragged Across Concrete would enjoy a
wide theatrical release. However, Lionsgate requested the film be edited down
to an audience friendly 130 minutes which was met with much disdain from
Zahler. Considering the final cut clause in his contract, Lionsgate opted to
release the film in a limited theatrical run and same day digital, mirroring
the other Zahler releases. The film stands uncut and unedited at 159 minutes
and Lionsgate look stupid. I enjoyed the film in the comfort of my own home but
I would have basked in the glory of this film in the cinema. Zahler was right
to keep the film to its original 159 minute run time as every minute counts and
means something. Rushing such a movie would be overlooking what it is all
about. It might not appear so at first but this is a total deconstruction of
the crime thriller/buddy cop film as we know it. There are four angles at play.
Firstly we have Mel Gibson and Vince Vaughn as buddy cops Brett Ridgeman
and Anthony Lurasetti. Ridgeman is old school, rough, gets the job done but
hasn’t been promoted in decades due to his attitude. Getting on in age, he is
becoming resentful, a sick wife and a bullied daughter only add to his worry.
Lurasetti is slightly younger, respectful of his experienced partner but a
little softer in his approach. After an arrest gets a little rough and is
filmed on CCTV, the pair find themselves on a months unpaid dismissal. The
usual grilling detectives get in such films is completely different, calm and
realistic. Don Johnson is their Chief Lt. Calvert and Ridgeman’s
ex-partner. There is no harking for the old days or complaining about the new
rules. Quite refreshingly, they discuss the matter and underline the fact that
police brutality isn’t okay, no matter who they are arresting. The clichés are
assassinated one by one from there on. We then meet Henry John (Tory Kittles),
a black man recently released from prison. We never learn of his crime, we see
him return home to find his mother on the game and taking drugs, neglecting his
disabled younger brother. Several clichés are addressed here through
exaggeration. He meets up with his best friend Biscuit (Michael Jai White) to
find some criminal jobs to pay the bills. We then go back to Ridgeman who is
looking for other means of income. A clean cop all his life, he looks for a
criminal he can perhaps steal from and goes to see Friedrich (played by the
great Udo Kier) who is and isn’t the archetype underground criminal boss. Using
a tailors as a cover, but probably making more money from it, Friedrich
suggests a criminal in town that Ridgeman could consider, as thanks for helping
out his son a few years back. The criminal turns out to be a Lorentz Vogelmann,
a cold, characterless foreign gentleman – another extreme cliché. Vogelmann has
two accomplices, both faceless and as cold as he. We see a spate of small
robberies committed by Vogelmann that see him steal very little while taking
great joy from shooting people. During a late night grocery shop robbery, he
stays longer than most criminals would after shooting the cashier and a
customer, simply to shoot the shop up a bit more, aiming at the television, the
bottles of spirits and even the display of snacks. Vogelmann is basically a
criminal, and all the ways people view criminals as. He isn’t a real person, we
know nothing about him other than he’s foreign, he’s bad, he steals, he kills.
He’s the ultimate cliché criminal. Henry and Biscuit are hired as get away
drivers, unfortunately for them, it turns out to be for Vogelmann and his team.
Henry and Biscuit drive them to the bank they’re set to rob, while Ridgeman and
Lurasetti follow, neither of them knowing what Vogelmann has in mind. This is
where we reach the film’s subplot and possibly the most important part of the
story. Rewind to that morning, and we find bank teller Kelly Summer (Jennifer
Carpenter) going through a panic attack on her first day back to work following
maternity leave. We see her beg her husband to let her back home after she
failed to get on her bus. He locks her out of their apartment ‘for her own
good’ and reassures her that he can and will look after their baby but they
need the money, she earns more and so it makes sense that she goes back to
work. It’s a tender moment, especially in our house as Mrs Crocodile will be
going back to work after maternity leave very soon. She plucks up the courage
to go to work and is welcomed by her boss and fellow employees, right before
the bank is robbed. She is given way more character development than most
victims and for good reason. Zahler gives a face to his victim and out of
everyone who is killed in the film her death is the most brutal. Why so brutal?
Because it has to be. People are murdered all the time in film, we have become
numb to it, so much so that we barely even flinch. So many bank robbery films
are shown from the perspective of the robber and we have become accustomed to
wanting them to get away with it. We cheer them on, thinking they’ve stuck it
to the man and have stolen from a greedy business but the truth is it is our money
and it doesn’t belong to them. Armed robbers are the worst, here we see them as
they are and we see their murders for the horrific acts of brutality that they
are. It seems strange to me that a deconstructed film such as this is actually
just showing things for the way they really are. The ending isn’t a happy one
for everyone, which I like very much. In many respects it’s a reaction to a
specific trend in Hollywood at the moment. I can’t help but think it’s a swipe
at the likes of Quentin Tarantino to be honest, but it is also a swipe at his
critics. The brutality isn’t just in the brutality either, its life in general.
Dragged Across Concrete is an ambiguous and rather sly title for the film, make
of it what you will but to just see a violent for violence sake film is to
completely miss the point. Cliches are mocked and exaggerated but without a
hint of comedy. Subjects such as racism are addressed but not in a matter of
fact manner, casual racism remaining within each character. It is interesting that
Mel Gibson would find a film with such subjects but I think it is all part of
the exploration. The two black characters in the film ‘white up’, turning the
idea of ‘blacking up’ on its head. No one blinked an eyelid. It’s all food for
thought but mostly it is about concentrating on what is really happening and
about objectivity. I thought it was a slow-burning and ridiculously intense
thriller masterpiece.
