Mel Gibson Is A Very Bad Cop In S. Craig Zahler’s Provocative & Troubling ‘Dragged Across Concrete’ [LFF Review]

S. Craig Zahler is undoubtedly one of the most interesting directors to emerge in genre film in the last few years. Initially turning heads as a screenwriter (his “The Brigands Of Rattleborge” topped one of the first Black Lists and attracted filmmakers like Park Chan-Wook, though ultimately never quite made it to screen), he finally broke through thanks to his horror-western directorial debut “Bone Tomahawk” three years ago.

Traveling under the radar a little at first, the movie became a favourite on the festival circuit and among home streamers for its curiously lovable characters, terrific performances from some unlikely source, quotable, almost literary script, and horrific violence. And last year’s Vince Vaughn-starring follow-up “Brawl On Cell Block 99” proved just as much of a cult item, suggesting that Zahler was the real deal and that he might be the heir apparent to Tarantino.

But ‘Brawl,’ more than ‘Tomahawk,’ attracted some criticism in some quarters for a certain… Trumpy quality to its politics (“Last time I checked, the colors of the flag weren’t red, white and burrito,” Vaughn tells a Hispanic fellow-inmate at one point). And it doesn’t appear to be a fluke: Zahler’s third film, “Dragged Across Concrete,” if anything doubles down on that, not least because it stars, uh, divisive megastar Mel Gibson. It’s a film that showcases both the best and worst qualities of Zahler’s previous work, and I have some… complicated feelings about it.

Henry (Tory Kittles) is fresh out of prison, but when he returns home to find his mother turning tricks — in the same apartment where his disabled little brother lives. It’s clear that it won’t be long before he returns to a life of crime, and soon his pal Biscuit (Michael Jai White) is bringing him in on a job that should be simple (but inevitably, won’t be).

Meanwhile, cops Ridgeman (Mel Gibson) and Lurasetti (Vince Vaughn, returning for a second outing with Zahler) attract the wrong kind of attention when their no-holds-barred arrest of a drug dealer (which involves Gibson putting his foot on the perp’s neck) is filmed. Their lieutenant (Don Johnson) gets them to turn in their badges pending an inquiry, even while assuring them they’ll be cleared after the suspension.

But both men, fed up of the lack of promotion and cash, aren’t ready to wait for their paychecks to start up again — Ridgeman wants to provide a better way of life for his wife (Laurie Holden), an ex-cop now off the force due to her MS, and daughter, who’s just been assaulted for the fifth time in two years, while Lurasetti wants to buy an engagement ring for his girlfriend. So a contact (Udo Kier) tips them off to a man named Vogelmann (Thomas Kretschmann), who’s planning a crime of some kind — a crime that inevitably is the same one that Henry and Biscuit are working.

If this sounds like a lengthy set-up: it is. Zahler’s last two movies both weighed in around the two-hours-fifteen mark, and this is nearly half an hour longer than either. The good news is that the pay-off, when it comes, is largely worth it: the back-half of the film revolves entirely around the heist that the various characters are involved in and its aftermath, and it’s the best constructed and tensest sequence of Zahler’s fledgling career so far.

It’s tense and spare and inventive and gory (but somewhat less so than ‘Tomahawk’ or ‘Brawl’ in their most sickening moments) and a reminder that Zahler has real chops. That said, though, the characters aren’t really rich enough in this case that the film justifies the eighty minutes getting to the next eighty minutes: unlike “Bone Tomahawk,” these guys are mostly archetypes with the occasional quirk, and you feel like a more economical version of this story could have dropped you into the action a hell of a lot faster.

While Kittles and Vaughn both do solid work, one has to concede that it’s Gibson’s movie, and whether or not you believe that he should be welcomed back by Hollywood to the extent that he has been (personally, I’m not against forgiving people in theory if they make a proper effort to learn from and make good on their transgressions, but Gibson hasn’t done all that much in the way of repenting …), one also has to concede that it’s the best he’s been in a film since probably “Signs.” Ridgeman comes across like a version of “Lethal Weapon‘s” Riggs who never mellowed out and married Rene Russo — still borderline suicidal, still utterly broken, but with a melancholy edge. It’s a very good performance, but one that it feels hard to truly celebrate.

Speaking of hard to truly celebrate: the movie, in general. If “Brawl In Cell Block 99” had a reactionary streak, “Dragged Across Concrete” retweets everything Laura Ingraham posts on Twitter. Race is a particular trouble spot: after an opening police brutality incident that’s played for laughs, Johnson tells the two cops that being called a racist in today’s America is like being called a communist in the 1950s, even if it’s because you might have said something racist “in private” (one of the reasons that it’s hard to feel like Gibson has changed one iota is this scene, which feels like a defense of his own very public disgrace).

You also have Holden’s character saying that “I never thought I was a racist until living in this area,” because her daughter had a soda thrown on her by some Black kids (more importantly, Gibson’s choice to turn to crime is directly motivated by fears that those same kids might rape his child once she’s older), and later on, we’re told that punctured livers smell — “Black guys especially.”

Zahler has defended these moments by saying “I write to my taste. In terms of the reactions that people may have, I’m not really considering it whilst I’m doing it. I think there’s an integrity to the characters and it makes sense in what they say. There are obviously remarks that are provocations and throwaway jokes that may not be politically correct and they can read as such. It’s not a consideration when I am writing. I am aware that there are lines and moments in all of my pieces – and in my future movies – that will land awkwardly for some people or get people to hate me. That is your right to do so.” And the film’s certainly not shy of ‘politically incorrect’ moments, from Henry’s father being dismissed as a “faggot” to the fact that it takes a full twenty minutes of the movie to meet a woman who is neither naked nor a sex worker.

It brings to mind a lot of the arguments around last year’s ‘Three Billboards‘ — can characters do and say terrible things and remain sympathetic? What good is art if it can’t say provocative things? Does art have to be moral? The answers to these are respectively: yes, not much, and no. But “Dragged Across Concrete” isn’t the film you want to be flying the flag for in these cases. Zahler might paint himself as an equal opportunity offender, but as with ‘Three Billboards,’ it’s minorities who bear the overwhelming brunt of the offense, while Gibson and Vaughn mostly get a rough-edged nobility. If there is a hero, it’s Henry (who at least gets something closer to an internal life than anyone in McDonagh’s film), but on the whole, virtually everyone we meet are bad people, and the few good people often suffer a worse fate than the bad ones.

And fine, maybe that’s nihilism rather than bigotry, but the secret about nihilism is that it’s incredibly boring to watch on screen. Zahler has a ton of talent (I really did love “Bone Tomahawk”), and I’d love to see it again deployed in the service of a story that doesn’t just display challenging views but examines them and challenges them, a movie with more to say than ‘people are terrible,’ a film with more on its mind than owning the libs. [C-]

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