Bad Mel in good company
Starring: Mel Gibson, Vince Vaughn, Tory Kittles, Michael Jai White. Hard on the surface, even harder underneath LET’S not dance around the bleeding obvious (and not just because there is bleeding everywhere here): Dragged Across Concrete is a rough, tough and unrepentantly nasty cops-and-robbers thriller.
For its many flaws and equal number of surprising merits, it is perhaps only of select appeal to crime buffs who wish for movies as seedy and searing as they were back in the 1970s.
Two factors loom large in terms of either inhibiting or intensifying the Dragged Across Concrete experience: an unquestionably deserved R18+ rating due to sustained and graphic violence, and a punishing run time stretching closer to three hours than two.
Shrewd, sharp casting from top to bottom remains a saving (dis)grace throughout.
Mel Gibson and Vince Vaughn star as Ridgeman and Lurasetti, long-term policing partners contemplating crossing over to the dark side after being suspended by their superiors for using excessive force on the job.
Actually, to be totally honest, the period of contemplation undertaken by Ridgeman and Lurasetti does not last all that long. These two are as hard up for cash as they are strapped for scruples.
“We have the skills and the right to acquire proper compensation,” snarls Ridgeman upon learning of a gold heist that will soon be going down. Guess who intends to step in, take their cut and then take a hike?
Weirdly, Dragged Across Concrete gets better as conditions worsen and options shrink for the embattled protagonists, who will, remarkably, both annoy you and stay on your good side throughout.
While Gibson and Vaughn are hardly DiCaprio and Pitt in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, their glass-half-empty repartee becomes quite a distinctly odd pleasure.
But it’s an acquired taste flavoured with some juicy genre flourishes, certainly not for the faint of heart or those running low on patience.