Dragged Across Concrete (2018) ***1/2
S. Craig Zahler's third feature, Dragged Across Concrete (2018), is a super slow burn deconstructionist crime film that remains politically neutral when it comes to good, bad and race relations.
DAC is perhaps Zahler's best film yet—similar in tone to his previous Brawl In Cell Block 99 (2017) (my review here), but without the exploitation present in both that film and his debut Bone Tomahawk (2016) (though there is still some shocking violence), and more serious overall (though there is still a good deal of humor—I'd say 30%). As with Brawl, he tapped actors Vince Vaughn (who has a great chemistry with appropriately cast lead Mel Gibson—here playing a kind of older variation of his character Porter from Payback (1999)), Jennifer Carpenter, Don Johnson, and Udo Kier, and the same musical artists (The O'Jays, Butch Tavares, Adi Armour) to contribute to the soundtrack.
Zahler perhaps intentionally or perhaps unconsciously channels Michael Mann and Quentin Tarantino—regarding the former in the way he attempts to create a sprawling drama with a heist at its center, and regarding the latter in the way that his characters interact and speak. Dragged never quite lands in the way that classic films by those two directors have, but it's still one of the best films released in 2019 (in the US).
DAC is perhaps Zahler's best film yet—similar in tone to his previous Brawl In Cell Block 99 (2017) (my review here), but without the exploitation present in both that film and his debut Bone Tomahawk (2016) (though there is still some shocking violence), and more serious overall (though there is still a good deal of humor—I'd say 30%). As with Brawl, he tapped actors Vince Vaughn (who has a great chemistry with appropriately cast lead Mel Gibson—here playing a kind of older variation of his character Porter from Payback (1999)), Jennifer Carpenter, Don Johnson, and Udo Kier, and the same musical artists (The O'Jays, Butch Tavares, Adi Armour) to contribute to the soundtrack.
Zahler perhaps intentionally or perhaps unconsciously channels Michael Mann and Quentin Tarantino—regarding the former in the way he attempts to create a sprawling drama with a heist at its center, and regarding the latter in the way that his characters interact and speak. Dragged never quite lands in the way that classic films by those two directors have, but it's still one of the best films released in 2019 (in the US).
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