This is a gritty crime drama centered around two shady cops. While it's nowhere near as good, Dragged Across Concrete falls under the same category as something like The French Connection. The difference between a movie like this and something like The French Connection is that Dragged Across Concrete really emphasizes the idea of bystanders filming police (voyeurism of police is a huge part of this movie). I appreciate a good gritty cop drama with the protagonists in positions where they’re supposed to be the good guys when in fact they’re the bad guys. Folks love using descriptors like “complex” and “complicated” to describe shitty characters now more than ever but I’m not doing that. Some characters are just bad. Police dramas like Narc, Copland, Prince Of The City and more fall perfectly in to this category I'm talking about. Dragged Across Concrete may not be as good as those other films I’ve named but it still deserves to be mentioned in the same conversation.
And for those of you questioning my inclusion of Copland in to this category - just imagine the number of times Sylvester Stallone’s Freddy Heflin ignored blatant low/mid level corruption or police brutality. Again - I think Copland is very good but you’re being naive if you think Stallone’s character is this pure-hearted police officer that’s better than his peers.I think some viewers still haven’t grasped that just because someone is the main character in a film that it doesn’t mean we have to root for them. There are backstories behind both cops in Dragged Across Concrete that might make someone feel sympathy for them. I don't. And that's ok. I still find the movie to be somewhat interesting.
Anyway… some of the qualities about Dragged Across Concrete that most folks called “bad” are what I liked about it. The film was criticized for it's long runtime, the deadpan delivery, the chemistry between the actors and the long stretches of time where nothing really happens. The movie was also heavily criticized for its own brand of social commentary and overall worldview that might be considered right wing or even alt-right. But we'll get in to that shortly.
I completely understand why a boring film would be an issue for some but I like boring movies as long as there’s an interesting payoff at some point. Director S. Craig Zahler is known for his extreme violence and explosive finales. So for all the “boring” stakeout scenes of Mel Gibson & Vince Vaughn just sitting in a car, I knew there would be some kind of explosive finale.
There’s a sort of Americanized Bresson-ian quality about Zahler’s last two films that I enjoy (stunted emotions, dry deliveries, human reactions that don’t match the situations around them, etc).
Anyway… some of the qualities about Dragged Across Concrete that most folks called “bad” are what I liked about it. The film was criticized for it's long runtime, the deadpan delivery, the chemistry between the actors and the long stretches of time where nothing really happens. The movie was also heavily criticized for its own brand of social commentary and overall worldview that might be considered right wing or even alt-right. But we'll get in to that shortly.
I completely understand why a boring film would be an issue for some but I like boring movies as long as there’s an interesting payoff at some point. Director S. Craig Zahler is known for his extreme violence and explosive finales. So for all the “boring” stakeout scenes of Mel Gibson & Vince Vaughn just sitting in a car, I knew there would be some kind of explosive finale.
There’s a sort of Americanized Bresson-ian quality about Zahler’s last two films that I enjoy (stunted emotions, dry deliveries, human reactions that don’t match the situations around them, etc).
I also like actors stepping out of their comfort zone. Much like Dragged Across Concrete’s predecessor, this is Vince Vaughn doing something slightly different. He’s played dislikable characters and straight up villains in the past, but it was always Vince Vaughn being some iteration of himself. That’s not meant to be an insult as plenty of actors have made great careers out of playing slight variations of the same person. But films like Brawl In Cell Block 99 and Dragged Across Concrete show that Vaughn has some range outside of snarky wise-ass.
I haven’t been able to enjoy anything Mel Gibson has done in a long time for personal reasons but this is an exception. Possibly the only exception. I don’t expect anyone to share my personal views but there are just some factual things we all know about Mel Gibson that I don’t like and I just don’t want to engage with his work anymore. And to be honest, has he done anything good or interesting in the last 20+ years outside of Dragged Across Concrete?
As long as I don’t try to rally the troops to get people to agree with me or use what little online platforms I have to slander him, I can quietly just not watch anything Mel Gibson is in without it being an issue. I also don’t retroactively dislike anything he’s done in the past that I enjoyed. I still love Mad Max, Lethal Weapon and more. I just don’t like the guy or the majority of his work today. Outside of what I’m writing right now, I dislike him quietly. More folks should try that.
The pairing of two specific actors like Mel Gibson and Vince Vaughn in a movie like Dragged Across Concrete during the Trump-era is certainly a choice. I want to preface this by saying that anyone can cast whoever they want in their movie. Gibson and Vaughn work well together. But somebody somewhere behind the making of this movie had to be conscious of the type of pre-judgement this movie was going to receive by pairing up someone like Gibson with an open Trump supporter like Vaughn in a movie surrounded with and clouded by Maga-ism. I don’t think it’s all the movie’s fault. Filmmakers can’t always control their fanbase. I'm sure Martin Scorsese didn't envision frat boys hanging up posters of Travis Bickle on their wall. I doubt Stanley Kubrick thought people would think of Alex as "cool". But when S. Craig Zahler is buddied up with and co-owns publications like Rebeller, its not out of line to question if his movies do have some kind of a right wing agenda. To be clear - that doesn’t mean Zahler’s art should be suppressed or stopped. He just shouldn’t act so disingenuously confused when he’s associated with “right wing” art and politics.
Most internet searches on Zahler, his films or Rebeller bring up articles like these first:
As for Mel Gibson - I don’t think anyone completely knows all of his personal political beliefs (despite who he aligns himself with these days), but we do know some of his views on a few specific groups of people that place him outside of any liberal/left/“woke” category which kind of automatically gets you labeled “right wing”.
This image is formatted like a meme (I found it on the internet) but if you haven't seen Brawl On Cell Block 99, I assure you this is direct dialogue lifted from the movie (it's from a different scene than the one from the image above). When I see stuff like this it makes me wonder who actually finds this funny or witty. Not so much because it's low-hanging fruit racism either. It's just not funny from a comedic standpoint.
S. Craig Zahler takes this conveniently neutral position on issues like race, politics and social issues. He’s too smart to be this naive. Like I eluded to earlier, I think it’s disingenuous. He certainly doesn’t owe anyone an explanation on his personal views even if they don’t align with mine or yours. But when all of his movies have the same potentially controversial or problematic themes about race and social issues, it shouldn’t be considered out of line when he’s asked certain questions about not only his films but his personal views. I guess it depends on who is doing the interview or who is doing the critique on his work. It is my opinion that anyone with extreme views on either end of the spectrum shouldn’t be taken too seriously and need to stay away from critiquing art.
On one hand, I can see how an uninformed Joe Rogan listener with limited political knowledge that blindly loves Donald Trump and the occasional racist joke thinks that Zahler makes movies for him or her. But I can also see how an emotionally unstable modern-day left-leaning person that makes everything about personal identity politics would allow themselves to get worked up over certain aspects within Brawl In Cell Block 99 or Dragged Across Concrete.
Personally, I think Zahler probably has more right-leaning views in his personal life. But as an artist I really don’t think that he makes movies with hardcore maga dorks or sensitive theater kids in mind.
And let me be clear, I’ve never aligned myself with anything politically “right”, but modern-day liberals and left-leaning folks can sometimes be pretty racist and bigoted in their own unique way but it never gets called out the same way racism on the right does. But that’s another conversation for another time.
Modern-day liberal/left-leaning/diehard democrats are so far gone these days that I, a Black person, was called “right wing” for being critical of One Battle After Another on a podcast because I called out the problematic handling of race and Black women specifically.
Anyway...
S. Craig Zahler was already criticized for his presumed social, racial and political views prior to Dragged Across Concrete. Bone Tomahawk and Brawl In Cell Block 99 don’t exactly have scenes or scenarios that cast people of color in the best light (he’s not obligated to make people of color out to look good either). One could say the same thing about the white characters in his films but it is clear in his filmmaking that we’re sort of supposed to be on their side or at least have some of sympathy for them even with all their colorful views on Latinos and Black people.
I think the reason why Zahler gets criticized more than Tarantino for his handling of race is because he’s more blunt and realistically cynical. Tarantino is far more goofy with his n-word bullshit. He also masks it by showing off his knowledge of Blaxploitation films and uses his friendships with Rza and Samuel L. Jackson to shield himself from any genuine criticism. It just feels more real when the characters in Zahler’s movies make an off color remark about Mexicans or Black people.
I truly believe that if Mel Gibson hadn’t been cast in this and two very specific lines of dialogue concerning Black people and Mexicans were removed, Dragged Across Concrete would have been treated a little differently. On the surface it is a pretty tame story. Two police officers are suspended for six weeks without pay after being caught on film using excessive force towards a (Latino) drug dealer. The problem is they’re both in need of immediate money for personal reasons and can’t go six weeks without their paychecks. After being tipped off about a planned bank heist, our suspended cops go rogue in an attempt to intercept the money. Naturally things go wrong and everyone has to try and clean up the mess left by the botched robbery.
While Gibson and Vaughn are certainly the main characters in Dragged Across Concrete, it’s the film’s supporting Black characters that end up being the most fascinating. Part of me thinks Zahler did this on purpose as a way to silence and/or challenge his critics that label him as a racist or a bigot. I kind of wish he didn’t do this because it doesn’t feel totally genuine. Addressing critics in such a direct way feels cheap. And just because you make a Black character the “winner” in the end doesn’t make you not racist. You really can’t win. The final scene feels like Zahler looking directly in to the camera at left-leaning critics and going “See? The Black guy lives in the end. What now???”
This is an interesting film that’s been tainted by the maga dorks and the liberal theater kids I mentioned earlier. But if you have any type of nuance or appreciation for imperfect cinema with a few good qualities, this can bring about some interesting dialogue.
On one hand, I can see how an uninformed Joe Rogan listener with limited political knowledge that blindly loves Donald Trump and the occasional racist joke thinks that Zahler makes movies for him or her. But I can also see how an emotionally unstable modern-day left-leaning person that makes everything about personal identity politics would allow themselves to get worked up over certain aspects within Brawl In Cell Block 99 or Dragged Across Concrete.
Personally, I think Zahler probably has more right-leaning views in his personal life. But as an artist I really don’t think that he makes movies with hardcore maga dorks or sensitive theater kids in mind.
And let me be clear, I’ve never aligned myself with anything politically “right”, but modern-day liberals and left-leaning folks can sometimes be pretty racist and bigoted in their own unique way but it never gets called out the same way racism on the right does. But that’s another conversation for another time.
Modern-day liberal/left-leaning/diehard democrats are so far gone these days that I, a Black person, was called “right wing” for being critical of One Battle After Another on a podcast because I called out the problematic handling of race and Black women specifically.
S. Craig Zahler was already criticized for his presumed social, racial and political views prior to Dragged Across Concrete. Bone Tomahawk and Brawl In Cell Block 99 don’t exactly have scenes or scenarios that cast people of color in the best light (he’s not obligated to make people of color out to look good either). One could say the same thing about the white characters in his films but it is clear in his filmmaking that we’re sort of supposed to be on their side or at least have some of sympathy for them even with all their colorful views on Latinos and Black people.
I think the reason why Zahler gets criticized more than Tarantino for his handling of race is because he’s more blunt and realistically cynical. Tarantino is far more goofy with his n-word bullshit. He also masks it by showing off his knowledge of Blaxploitation films and uses his friendships with Rza and Samuel L. Jackson to shield himself from any genuine criticism. It just feels more real when the characters in Zahler’s movies make an off color remark about Mexicans or Black people.
I truly believe that if Mel Gibson hadn’t been cast in this and two very specific lines of dialogue concerning Black people and Mexicans were removed, Dragged Across Concrete would have been treated a little differently. On the surface it is a pretty tame story. Two police officers are suspended for six weeks without pay after being caught on film using excessive force towards a (Latino) drug dealer. The problem is they’re both in need of immediate money for personal reasons and can’t go six weeks without their paychecks. After being tipped off about a planned bank heist, our suspended cops go rogue in an attempt to intercept the money. Naturally things go wrong and everyone has to try and clean up the mess left by the botched robbery.
While Gibson and Vaughn are certainly the main characters in Dragged Across Concrete, it’s the film’s supporting Black characters that end up being the most fascinating. Part of me thinks Zahler did this on purpose as a way to silence and/or challenge his critics that label him as a racist or a bigot. I kind of wish he didn’t do this because it doesn’t feel totally genuine. Addressing critics in such a direct way feels cheap. And just because you make a Black character the “winner” in the end doesn’t make you not racist. You really can’t win. The final scene feels like Zahler looking directly in to the camera at left-leaning critics and going “See? The Black guy lives in the end. What now???”
This is an interesting film that’s been tainted by the maga dorks and the liberal theater kids I mentioned earlier. But if you have any type of nuance or appreciation for imperfect cinema with a few good qualities, this can bring about some interesting dialogue.
