Dragged Across Concrete (S. Craig Zahler, 2018).

Movie Review | Dragged Across Concrete (Zahler, 2018)

This review contains mild spoilers.

I decided to give this a rewatch after being mixed on Brawl in Cell Block 99 to see how it held up. The thing that lingered heaviest in my memory was the scene where the cop protagonists played by Mel Gibson and Vince Vaughn, having been suspended for being caught on camera brutalizing a suspect, sit across a table from their lieutenant played by Don Johnson as all three of them complain about political correctness. And that scene is as embarrassing as I remembered, the cinematic equivalent of your crazy uncle’s Facebook post. But it is followed shortly by Johnson gently pushing back against Gibson, positing that while he’s certainly sympathetic to Gibson for all his years of service, he did use much more force against the suspect than necessary and that all these years on the street have made him lose his compassion. (Johnson’s involvement may have been another factor in my decision to revisit this. He has limited screentime but is well used, as his presence is softer than Gibson’s and reads as less overtly reactionary. Plus you get old photos of Crockett and Riggs side by side, although the latter is sporting his suburban dad Lethal Weapon 4 haircut instead of the wild man mullet of the earlier, better movies.) On paper this isn’t unlike how the other movie hedges its bets by placing an overt racist character alongside the hero even while proving said character’s words true with its depiction of another set of Latino criminals. (This movie uses a similar trope, but its juxtaposition is less clumsy.) But here, the scene comes after seeing Gibson and Vaughn in the field, where on top of roughing up a suspect, they engage in racial taunting of the suspect’s girlfriend while she’s scared and vulnerable and after manipulating her into cooperating, promptly go back on their word. Put this against Vaughn’s unceasingly righteous hero in the other movie, and the gestures towards complexity here feel more sincere.

There is plenty of objectionable material in the movie along these lines, but you feel it trying to challenge its own views. There’s the cartoonish depiction of the black bullies who taunt Gibson’s daughter and the dialogue his wife is saddled with, and the demeaning fate one of the major black characters is subject to, but this is put up against the presence of a third protagonist, a low level black criminal played by Tory Kittles who sees his involvement with some more dangerous criminals as a way to alleviate the impoverished situation of his family. You could argue that the movie is pulling from stereotypes here too, but to me the depiction of this his family read as empathetic, drawing parallels to the economic difficulties faced by Gibson and Vaughn. And while Kittles is a lower key presence than the other actors, I do like how the movie lets his intelligence sneak up on you. The fact that it eventually shows him to be a more honourable man than Gibson, might read as provocation in the “fooled ya good, ya dumb liberals, stick that in your pipe and smoke it” strain in the context of S. Craig Zahler’s career, but I’d like to think Zahler has been nudged into expanding his outlook. I seem to be in the minority here, but compared to the other movie, it reads less cleanly to me as a reactionary text and more earnestly at war with its ideological shortcomings, not entirely unlike the heroes. Who knows, with a few more movies, we could turn Zahler into a Bernie Bro. For now, let’s just keep the conversation strictly on economic policy and not talk for more than two minutes. Yes, people are facing hardship. Polite nod. Handshake. And call it a day.

And on the whole, I think this is substantially better directed than the other movie. Zahler’s patience once again makes great use of his performers. The casting of Gibson seems in part like a stunt, but the darkness of the actor’s offscreen life hangs over the movie interestingly, making the extent to which he’s morally compromised a lot more convincing. And it goes without saying that he’s as intense and committed as ever. I think Vaughn struggles with his accent and catchphrase, but because Gibson is so damn good, he lifts up Vaughn as well, and I like the texture the movie applies to their camaraderie. The men communicate in a mixture of jargon and percentages, delivered tersely and sarcastically to mask any warmth or affection. During a rare moment of emotional vulnerability, one of them concedes that he’s at a loss for words, as if their masculinity presents something of a trap. And I liked the way Kittles’ subtle intelligence and instincts for self preservation compare to their more forceful presences, and the way the movie parallels his camaraderie with Michael Jai White with the relationship between Vaughn and Gibson. There’s also a rich cast of high impact supporting players, some of whom, like Udo Kier, Fred Melamed and Jennifer Carpenter, seem to be part of Zahler’s stock company.

I also think Zahler’s patience gives the movie a compelling structure. This runs even longer than Brawl, but while that movie seems to spin its wheels before we get to the prison scenes, here I appreciated the way the movie slowly metes out information. The villains’ heist plan and capacity for cruelty doesn’t come into focus until far too late, which has the morbid effect akin to watching two cars for the entirety of their trip up to the moment they crash into each other and then observing the gruesome aftermath in slow motion. The extreme violence doled out by the villains has a pulverizing effect, leaving no gesture of weakness, doubt or basic compassion unpunished. (As morbid as it sounds, one brazenly exploitative detour taken by the movie ends with an image that makes me think this would have had quite the impact in 3D.) The mean streak affords a few laughs too, like when one of the criminals shoots the merchandise and fixtures out of spite after killing a hapless convenience store clerk and a customer with bad timing, although the relentless racial provocations of one particularly ruthless character might be a bit too much to take. The climax plays out seemingly in real time, moments of unbearable stillness punctuated by bursts of horrific violence, captured in yellow filters that evoke the film’s bleak, jaundiced worldview and austere compositions strip the proceedings to down the strategic possibilities and probability of death that each character is faced with. This last stretch is so potent as pure suspense that it makes the movie worth seeing despite its shortcomings.

People recommend me more movies like S. Craig Zahler's Dragged Across Concrete and Brawl In Cell Block 99 PLEASE

Dragged Across Concrete (2018), dir. S. Craig Zahler

Here's something that I came up with for fun and it's a headcanon shared universe of movies/shows that I was able to connect thematically while not being restrained to a certain style or aesthetic.

• Better Call Saul, Breaking Bad and El Camino

• Sons Of Anarchy and Mayans MC

• The Incredibles

• The Nice Guys

• Wolfwalkers

• Dragged Across Concrete

• Heat

• The Crow

• Thief

• Runaway Train

• Attack On Titan

• Death Note

• Upgrade

• The Invisible Man

• Centurion

Chronologically, the first in this universe is Neil Marshall's criminally underrated Centurion (2010) while the last in this universe is Leigh Whannell's fantastic Upgrade (2018).

Even though these all have different styles and aesthetics, the two things that do most definitely connect them are —

• They all focus on the type of unconventional protagonists and cast of characters that you wouldn't expect to be in these type of scenarios. Case in point is Breaking Bad, a high school chemistry teacher who's not only awkward but struggling that gets inoperable lung cancer that leads him to cook meth to leave enough money for his family before he dies AND a former student of his, a lanky junkie who's blackmailed into being his partner.

• The events in all of them are either caused by or forwarded by or BOTH by the main character or characters' actions. See, they all make life-altering decisions that completely change everything and it of course leads to repercussions.

Now for the titan in the room, how I see Attack On Titan being set in this universe is that it takes place secretly in modern day on another side of the world. I see Season 1 & 2 and the Uprising arc in the manga being the canon versions in this world.

Dragged Across Concrete (S. Craig Zahler, 2018) Highway 99 entry ramp Vancouver, British Columbia (Canada) Bridge over W 4th Ave Type: beam bridge.

Confession: obtained.

one day i will sit down and have the words to describe jian yi and mo guan shan’s friendship with words but until then have this

So a lot of fics play the Asgard is just fully homophobic no matter what card pretty straight, yeah? No pun intended. And thats all well and good and makes for some very good plot stuff. But i think more people should utilize the much funnier but still sad- Asgard is... okay With seeking out men sexually. But only if its as a hobby, you still need to have kids and settle down. And also if you bottom youre a freak

bestie you've just described the 2 most popular ways Asgard is done. instead why don't we question why the homophobia magically disappears when Thor is into men 🤔 

I'm so sick of booktok books. Tropes sticky-taped together to make a semi-comprehensible and mildly enjoyable at best story. 2D characters that have no real defining personalities beyond banter and witty one-liners, that have no clear motivations or goals, that are inconsistent in their actions and thoughts. A lack of description that has you rereading passages over and over in a lackluster attempt to understand wtf is going on.

I'm reviewing this book for a bookstore magazine, and that fucking thing is the inspiration behind this. I mean, it has "TikTok" on the front cover, so I was a little sceptical at first, but now I'm just pissed off. Apart from what I've already mentioned, there are severe plot holes - the entire plot of the book is centred around a journey to recover a magical item of legends. Both of the main characters are sceptical of its existence, but they decide to try and find it anyway. Personally, I think it could have been executed much better if one of the characters believed in it fully and wholeheartedly, and was dead set on his goal to get it. Then, that would have allowed leeway for some scepticism in other characters while still moving the plot ahead, and added more depth to the otherwise bland characters. It also would have tied in very well with the backstory and just made so much more sense plot-wise.

I don't know, it's just really pissing me off. I probably wouldn't be able to finish this book if it weren't for the fact I'm writing a review, but it pains me to think of the fact I'll have to write a mostly positive review - so I'll do what I'm best at, and compliment the (few) enjoyable aspects while backhandedly complimenting the rest. I'll keep it honest, but if I didn't have a word limit/positive theme I would write a scathing review of 5k words, at bare minimum. There are so many points where I have to flip a few pages back and ask myself if I missed something - not that there's much to miss.

The two main characters are both cardboard cutouts with inconsistent goals and thoughts. One of the central conflicts between them makes next to no sense. The other two side characters are yawn-inducing and essentially useless, and I often forget they're even there. The lore of the world is bleak and two-dimensional. The writing style reminds me of The Hunger Games with its short and direct sentences, but is executed so poorly that I hesitate to compare it to, you know, The Hunger Games. It works in that series with Katniss' thought process and character, but here it just makes me cringe. It gives off the effect of trying to put emphasis on sentences that really don't deserve it. I think some books can pull that writing style off really well, when paired with other sentence structures, but in this book it just comes across as lazy and, well, badly written.

Writing a book is still an impressive feat, and the author could have done much worse. So I'll still write a kind review, but I'll keep it honest and I won't be happy about it.

Anyway, just needed to get that out of my system so that I can write a mostly positive review. But I'm just sick of what is essentially the Marvel-ification of a lot of recent YA books. I've seen other posts discussing this so I'm glad I'm not alone. And either way, bad books have always existed - it's not a recent phenomenon. Good books exist, bad books exist, and unfortunately it's a lot easier to find the latter.

slightly burnt out on writing so it might be a bit until i upload something next

i really need to pick a struggle every day i must survive soul crushing anxiety and psychosomatic agonies and then also be the dumbest person in my major so i have to work like 2x longer than everyone else while dealing with said agonies.

For all you joe quinn whores (me included)

sorry i’m so toxic it’s just… i really miss one direction :/