Directed By – S. Craig Zahler
Starring – Mel Gibson, Vince Vaughn, Tory Kittles
Running Time – 159 Minutes (2 Hours 39 Minutes)
★★★✩✩
Last year I saw Brawl In Cell Block 99 and while it was a movie that made me incredibly ill it was also my first introduction to Zahler. Even though I felt sick, it was a good film with a great performance from Vaughn and the over two-hour runtime just flew.
So I was excited to see these two work together for Dragged Across Concrete alongside Gibson playing dirty cops, it was just a shame it didn’t live up to its predecessor.
When disillusioned old-time cop Brett Ridgeman (Gibson) and his cocky younger partner Anthony Lurasetti (Vaughn) are caught on camera forcefully strong-arming a suspect gets them both suspended. The pair impulsively resort to a criminal plan, when their finances depleted, which sees them cross paths with Henry Johns (Kittles), a recently released ex-con desperate to rescue his family from poverty, by any means available.
While Brawl glided its runtime, this literally dragged as it was a 30-minute idea that ran for what seemed forever and someone should have told Zahler to edit 30 minutes out.
I understood what he was trying to do by building tension and atmosphere and while I liked the characters and premise for the runtime it had there wasn’t enough to keep me engaged.
Moreover, the film does have violence and was used well. The Bone Tomahawk helmer needed some more of his Brawl set pieces to be a bit more entertaining and still be a decent crime thriller.
As stated above I liked the Gibson and Vaughn together and have great chemistry and even routing for Gibson in this film. Kittle also does a good job as someone willing to risk it all for a bigger reward and he comes into his own in the third act of the movie and again someone you route for.
It’s just a shame about Jennifer Carpenter who’s in the film for no more than 10 minutes and is wasted. Given a different role and one role particular, I think she could’ve been brilliant.
Verdict
A dragged out crime thriller with decent characters and plot but needed to be no more than two hours.
No comments:
Post a Comment