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View Full Version : Dragged Across Concrete (S. Craig Zahler)



Irish
03-22-2019, 09:05 AM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2p5pdWyyZoc

- https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6491178
- https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/dragged_across_concrete
- https://www.metacritic.com/movie/dragged-across-concrete

Irish
03-22-2019, 01:04 PM
Holy fuck. This movie.

- It's a behemoth at 2 hours and 38 minutes, but there's no fat. Zahler uses every single scene to a purpose.

- This is a crime drama, heavy on the drama. Zahler spends a HUGE amount of time establishing his characters and letting us hang out with them.

- The dialogue is quirky and funny, like low-grade Mamet. I'd call this Zahler's "Heat," but it doesn't have visual flourish and it doesn't have set pieces.

- Don't go in expecting quick-cut fights, car chases, big explosions, or a lotta gunfire. It's very definitely *not* an action movie.

- The script continually surprised me and Zahler takes risks, especially with his ending. He doesn't pander the way Hollywood usually does.

- The final hour is tense and fucked up. I felt a little sick, but not because of violence or gore.

- The cast is a small collection of some of my favorite actors so I'm heavily biased here, too.

- Sorta a low budget exploitation film that's fascinated by its characters and *without* gratuitous elements.

- I dunno if I'd recommend this to anyone who wasn't a fan of Zahler (or the actors involved) and planned on seeing it anyway. It's novel-sized and unconventional and maaaaaaybe the best movie I've seen this year so far.

PS: This'll get tagged by the film twitterati for its "racist" elements --- some of the white characters are, uh, outspoken --- but I'm not sure that's a fair criticism. People say and believe shitty things and Zahler's representation of that seems a little more honest than the usual diversity kumbaya we get from certain types of movies these days.

Pop Trash
03-23-2019, 09:32 PM
PS: This'll get tagged by the film twitterati for its "racist" elements --- some of the white characters are, uh, outspoken --- but I'm not sure that's a fair criticism. People say and believe shitty things and Zahler's representation of that seems a little more honest than the usual diversity kumbaya we get from certain types of movies these days.

One of the worst aspects of contemporary p/c callout culture is people believing a fictional character is somehow a mouthpiece for the writer and/or director. I'm not sure it's like/retweet bait and people are being disingenuous or people are genuinely that stupid (and by "people" I mostly mean people in their 20s). Probably a little of column A) and a little of column B).

That said, I do think if you cast Mel Gibson in movies like this, you know what you are getting into.

Lazlo
03-23-2019, 10:44 PM
Was very much not a fan of Zahler’s other movies and pretty much loved this. Pacing was a big issue with the others but not here. I think seeing it in a theater without distraction made a big difference.

Yxklyx
03-25-2019, 11:33 AM
This was very languid - yet alright. The scene in Johnson's office DID sound like the writer/director using their actors as a mouthpiece. The ending was fairly disappointing. A mild yeah and I loved this director's previous film. I think a better edit would have made this much better. 6/10

Skitch
03-25-2019, 01:09 PM
Reading some of the critics reviews of this leads me to believe theyve never seen any of his other movies.

MadMan
03-29-2019, 07:12 AM
I look forward to renting this from my local RedBox months later. I doubt it comes to my area.

Irish
03-29-2019, 07:56 AM
I look forward to renting this from my local RedBox months later. I doubt it comes to my area.

It's available to rent now on Amazon, Google, iTunes, etc: https://www.justwatch.com/us/movie/dragged-across-concrete

megladon8
03-29-2019, 11:16 AM
One of the worst aspects of contemporary p/c callout culture is people believing a fictional character is somehow a mouthpiece for the writer and/or director. I'm not sure it's like/retweet bait and people are being disingenuous or people are genuinely that stupid (and by "people" I mostly mean people in their 20s). Probably a little of column A) and a little of column B).

That said, I do think if you cast Mel Gibson in movies like this, you know what you are getting into.


The example I always use in this argument is American Psycho (the movie, not the book).

Bateman is a disgusting, vile human who hates women.

The director, a woman, does not hate women. She does like like or identify with Patrick Bateman.

But that does not mean she cannot find him to be a fascinating character to explore.

You’re absolutely right that this outrage / call-our culture kind of misses the point in these situations.

Irish
03-30-2019, 12:59 PM
Buuuuuuuuuuuuut ... "American Psycho" is a satire. It's sorta obvious that Harron & Turner are making fun of Bateman.

Zahler doesn't do that in "Dragged." In the scene Yxklyx called out, it sounds a helluva lot like the characters are mouthpieces for the director. I don't have a huge problem with that --- plenty of left-leaning directors have done the same and just as brazenly --- but I do think it's reductive and lazy writing.

Dukefrukem
03-30-2019, 01:19 PM
Yes. The perfect pairing is beginning to take shape. Vince Vaughn and S. Craig Zahler. Rings perfect like Daniel Day-Lewis and Paul Thomas Anderson. The run-time here is obnoxious.

Zahler is quickly becoming by favorite director right behind Lanthimos.

megladon8
03-30-2019, 09:54 PM
Buuuuuuuuuuuuut ... "American Psycho" is a satire. It's sorta obvious that Harron & Turner are making fun of Bateman.

Zahler doesn't do that in "Dragged." In the scene Yxklyx called out, it sounds a helluva lot like the characters are mouthpieces for the director. I don't have a huge problem with that --- plenty of left-leaning directors have done the same and just as brazenly --- but I do think it's reductive and lazy writing.


Not asking for specifics because I don’t want spoilers, but did this have quick scenes of shocking brutal violence, similar to Brawl and Bone Tomahawk?

Dukefrukem
03-30-2019, 11:58 PM
Not asking for specifics because I don’t want spoilers, but did this have quick scenes of shocking brutal violence, similar to Brawl and Bone Tomahawk?

https://ih0.redbubble.net/image.204800171.6249/ap,550x550,16x12,1,transparent ,t.png

Skitch
03-31-2019, 02:33 AM
Awwww yeah....cant wait to watch this. This director seems to be one of the few that not only understands 70s cinema, but is able to replicate it instead of homage it. The difference between Death Proof and Planet Terror.

Peng
03-31-2019, 08:06 AM
My least favorite Zahler, but it still demonstrates what a filmmaker he is, all sturdy craft, productively languish pacing (the 2:40 hours fly by), and flavorful dialogue. Trouble is, the most conventional of his stories so far happen to coincide with his worst work as screenwriter yet. Big-picture heist plot this time around seems rather predictable, even if the details still provide engaging and/or unexpected smaller beats.

But in the past, his politics, whatever one thinks of them, blend into story and characters organically, while this film feels like he makes time for so many pauses for mouthpieces that seem straight out of some flag-emoji twitter's rants, which (again regardless of politics) tends to take one out of his usually immersive world-building. And Zahler's trademark detours seem a step down also, too mired in being "pointedly" provocative rather than genuinely adding to characters and world, with the Jennifer Carpenter one being his worst yet in how baldly manipulative it is (I don't mind that it's so violent, but mind that it's so eye-rollingly engineered).

The long climatic destination is muscularly staged enough to semi-justify the bumpy journey though, but it turns out what I like unapologetically in Zahler's film this time are only the hard-boiled hang-out atmosphere and grade-A banter between Gibson (among his best works here) and Vaughn in their stakeouts. 7/10

Morris Schæffer
04-07-2019, 02:55 PM
I don't get the Jennifer Carpenter subplot here, but that scene was still plenty tense that I didn't mind.

Great movie, hard to believe this was 258 minutes long.

Morris Schæffer
04-08-2019, 10:46 AM
And Zahler's trademark detours seem a step down also, too mired in being "pointedly" provocative rather than genuinely adding to characters and world, with the Jennifer Carpenter one being his worst yet in how baldly manipulative it is (I don't mind that it's so violent, but mind that it's so eye-rollingly engineered).

Thinking some more about this, I have to admit that her sudden (because it subverts expectations) and brutal execution really nailed the point home that Lurasetti and Ridgeman could have intervened but didn't, and this is reinforced by the Vaughn character making this point afterwards when they're tailing the van. In other words, we may not have cared in the same way, or half-loathed or leads quite as much, had it been random bank clerk..

Ezee E
05-05-2019, 05:46 AM
Put me in the Zahler fan club. This was great. Imperfect characters doing terrible things, never knowing what's going to happen, and for a few overlong (and maybe even unnecessary) scenes, it was worth it. I'll favor the Jennifer Carpenter subplot because it shows the aptitude of the men in van, and what could've indeed have been prevented...

This is something we've rarely seen in the last 5-10 years.

Skitch
05-05-2019, 06:05 PM
2 hours and 40 minutes that felt like an hour 20. What a ride.

megladon8
05-14-2019, 05:10 PM
This was great. Still prefer Brawl, but man did this fly by despite its length.

Now have a better understanding of the conversation earlier in the thread - I’m starting to have a difficult time differentiating between Zahler’s characters being bad people, and him having kind of a messed up world view.

I could see some having the complaint about the dialogue that “no one talks like that”, but I enjoy his style. More than a lot of Tarantino stuff, if I’m honest.

And what an ending.

Grouchy
06-24-2019, 03:43 PM
Yeah, this was pretty interesting and Zahler's dialogue style is all uniquely his own now, despite the debt owed to Mamet or Tarantino.

One other thing I'd like to point out about his movies is how sparingly they use music, and then always diegetically.

Grouchy
06-24-2019, 03:55 PM
Great movie, hard to believe this was 258 minutes long.
Hahah no reason to believe this! It's actually 100 minutes less long than that.