DRAGGED ACROSS CONCRETE (US/Canada/UK - 2019) Written and directed by S. Craig Zahler. Cast: Mel Gibson, Vince Vaughn, Tory Kittles, Don Johnson, Thomas Kretschmann, Michael Jai White, Jennifer Carpenter, Laurie Holden, Fred Melamed, Udo Kier, Tattiawna Jones, Justine Warrington, Jordyn Ashley Olson, Myles Truitt, Vanessa Bell Calloway, Noel G, Primo Allon, Matthew Maccaull, Richard Newman, Liannet Borrego. (R, 158 mins) "I'm a month away from my 60th. I'm still the same rank I was at 27. I don't politic and I don't change with the times and it turns out that shit's more important than good honest work." With his 2015 cannibal horror/western BONE TOMAHAWK and his 2017 grindhouse B-movie prison face-smasher BRAWL IN CELL BLOCK 99, musician and author-turned-filmmaker S. Craig Zahler established himself as a bold new voice in cult cinema (presumably as a goof, he also scripted 2018's PUPPET MASTER: THE LITTLEST REICH). Can one appropriately follow up a film where Vince Vaughn tears a car to pieces with his bare hands? Well, the gritty and amazingly-titled cop thriller DRAGGED ACROSS CONCRETE is Zahler's most ambitious provocation yet, weaving complex characterizations, multiple storylines, bursts of truly shocking violence and splatter and several startling plot turns into a compelling crime saga that runs a sprawling 158 minutes. Zahler's cache in genre circles hasn't come without controversy, with detractors hurling accusations of racism and branding his films as right-wing fodder for the Trump crowd. Cop, and by association, vigilante movies, have been labeled fascist fantasies for decades, going back decades to Clint Eastwood in DIRTY HARRY, Gene Hackman in THE FRENCH CONNECTION, and Charles Bronson in DEATH WISH. Zahler's characters do and say despicable things I don't see him defending or excusing their actions. Understanding the mindset of a political viewpoint doesn't necessarily mean tacit endorsement or justification. Perhaps it complicates things by showing that these characters have a human side and might be doing very wrong things for what they perceive to be right reasons, but Zahler isn't being overtly political here. It's more likely a sign of the times and the cultural environment where the younger generation of film critics have focused less on writing about the films and more about "hot takes," expressing themselves, airing their own grievances, looking for things to be offended by, and making a huge production out of how woke they are. That's really no way to watch movies, people.
He's obviously aware of the criticisms of his work, and even before watching DRAGGED ACROSS CONCRETE, one has to marvel at how well Zahler has his trolling game down: how much sheer chutzpah and raw balls does it take to make a movie about corrupt, racist cops in 2019 and cast Mel Gibson in the leading role? Few things piss off woke pop culture publications more than Gibson finding gainful employment, and his presence here can be seen as a test of separating the art from the artist or at least exposing the film's pre-release detractors for doing exactly what they're doing: passive-aggressively rehashing and reviewing Gibson's past transgressions instead of reviewing the movie. Gibson has lost none of his power to command the screen, turning in his best work in years as Detective Brett Ridgeman, a veteran cop in Bulwark, a fictional, good-sized lower-to-middle class city that's seen better days. Partnered with the younger Anthony Lurasetti (Hollywood conservative Vaughn, in his second Zahler film), Ridgeman is hardened, cynical, embittered, and a ticking time bomb. He does his job and refuses to play nice, and while his and Lurasetti's arrest records are exemplary ("Two wings of the penitentiary are filled with our collars...maybe three"), they're suspended for six weeks without pay when someone records Ridgeman using excessive force during an arrest, dragging a suspect (Noel G) out of the window on a fire escape and forcefully pressing his boot down on his head. The cell phone footage makes the local news, and while Ridgeman blames it on a society gone soft (sounding like a Fox News host when he barks "We get suspended because it wasn't done politely...the entertainment industry, formerly known as the news, needs villains" like a talking point), his former partner and current boss Lt. Calvert (Don Johnson) uses the opportunity to remind him "There's a reason I'm behind this desk running things and you're still out there on the streets."
Neither Ridgeman nor Lurasetti are in positions to go six weeks without pay. Lurasetti is about to splurge on an engagement ring for his girlfriend Denise (Tattiawna Jones), and Ridgeman is feeling pressure from multiple directions. His wife Melanie (Laurie Holden) is a former cop who was forced into early retirement when she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, and with the reduced income, they had to move to a crummy neighborhood where their teenage daughter Sara (Jordyn Ashley Olson) is regularly menaced by a group of black kids ("I was never a racist until we lived in this neighborhood," Melanie laments). Pissed that he's got over 30 years on the force with nothing to show for it and refusing to take a temporary security gig, Ridgeman calls in a favor from posh clothier and connected criminal Friedrich (Udo Kier), who tells him about a vaguely-defined job being orchestrated by associate Lorentz Vogelman (Thomas Kretschmann). With a reluctant Lurasetti onboard ("This is bad...like lasagna in a can"), the pair stake out Vogelman's apartment building for several days before piecing together some semblance of what he might be up to. Meanwhile, in a parallel storyline, just-paroled ex-con Henry Johns (Tory Kittles) arrives home to find his junkie mother (Vanessa Bell Calloway) working as a prostitute. Forced to grow up early after his closeted gay father abandoned the family ("Pops is a yesterday who ain't worth words") and wanting a better life for his mother and his wheelchair-bound little brother (Myles Truitt), Henry teams up with old buddy Biscuit (Michael Jai White), who gets wind of a job offer for a getaway driver.
Despite its gargantuan length, DRAGGED ACROSS CONCRETE is never dull and never crosses the line into self-indulgence. Like BONE TOMAHAWK and BRAWL IN CELL BLOCK 99, it unfolds like a novel, drawing you in and letting the story and the characters breathe and take form and find their voice at its own leisurely pace. It's a good 100 or more minutes before all the plot lines converge (Jennifer Carpenter also figures in with a small but pivotal role as a nervous first-time mom having severe separation anxiety on her first day back to work after having a baby three months earlier), and Zahler is in no rush to get anywhere. Its twists, turns, and detours recall JACKIE BROWN-era Quentin Tarantino, and while Zahler may lack QT's signature pop culture, "Royale with cheese" pizazz, the novelist in him has a way with words that is uniquely his own and fits perfectly with the bleak, abrasive, nihilistic vision of DRAGGED ACROSS CONCRETE's world. Zahler stops short of rooting for Ridgeman and Lurasetti, but he manages to humanize them in the antihero cop tradition of DIRTY HARRY's Harry Callahan and THE FRENCH CONNECTION's Popeye Doyle (speaking of Doyle, there's a character who would never fly in woke 2019). DRAGGED ACROSS CONCRETE is an equal opportunity offender, whether Ridgeman and Lurasetti are pretending they can't understand a hearing-impaired female perp speaking clear English (Lurasetti: "Sounds like a dolphin voice") or one of Vogelman's goons needing to cut open a corpse (it's a long story) and being reminded "Careful you don't open the liver...it's the worst smell in the world, especially with a black guy," or the numerous bits of overt homophobia. DRAGGED ACROSS CONCRETE takes place in an ugly and dangerous world filled with ugly and dangerous people. Though it has its share of humor (watch Gibson's seething slow burn on the stakeout as Ridgeman clocks Lurasetti--it's also a vintage Vaughn moment--at 98 minutes to finish an egg salad sandwich, finally snapping "A single red ant could've eaten it faster"), it's a furious, ferocious, and fearlessly uncompromising gut punch of a film that isn't pretty, doesn't play nice, and isn't easily shaken.
BRAWL IN CELL BLOCK 99 (US - 2017) Written and directed by S. Craig Zahler. Cast: Vince Vaughn, Jennifer Carpenter, Don Johnson, Udo Kier, Marc Blucas, Mustafa Shakir, Thomas Guiry, Dion Mucciacito, Geno Segers, Willie C. Carpenter, Fred Melamed, Clark Johnson, Pooja Kumar, Victor Almanzar, Calvin Dutton, Michael Medeiros, Devon Windsor, Tobee Paik, Rob Morgan, Philip Ettinger. (Unrated, 132 mins) With 2015's horror-western hybrid BONE TOMAHAWK, novelist/musician/jack-of-all-trades S. Craig Zahler immediately established himself as a filmmaker worth watching. The best description being "THE SEARCHERS if remade by Ruggero Deodato," BONE TOMAHAWK was an instant cult classic that was deserving of the label. Influenced by everything from Hollywood classics to Italian splatter films to underground metal (his musical projects include singing and playing drums in a band called Realmbuilder, and playing drums in the black metal band Charnel Valley), Zahler tackles the prison genre with BRAWL IN CELL BLOCK 99, a hyperviolent and stunningly brutal revenge melodrama with the kind of wonderfully old-school title you'd expect to find on a mid '50s Allied Artists programmer. In a welcome departure from roles he's been coasting through for years and what the little-loved second season of TRUE DETECTIVE hinted at, Vince Vaughn is almost the spirit of Lee Marvin incarnate as Bradley--do not call him Brad--Thomas, a man with a dark past who's just trying to make an honest living and get by. Stoical and serious, and with a large cross tattooed on the back of his shaved head, Bradley and his wife Lauren (Jennifer Carpenter) are recovering alcoholics living in a small house in a crummy part of town. Bradley drives a wrecker for a local mechanic, but business is slow and he's let go. Arriving home, he finds Lauren about to take off for some afternoon delight with a man she's been seeing for the last three months. Bradley is not an abusive man but he reacts in the only way he can at that moment: by calmly and methodically tearing apart her car with his bare hands.
After resolving to work through their problems and preserve their marriage, Bradley decides to go back to an old job: "delivering packages" for local dealer Gil (Marc Blucas). 18 months go by, and Bradley and Lauren are in a spacious new home and she's six months pregnant. Against Bradley's gut instinct, Gil goes into business with powerful Mexican drug lord Eliazar (Dion Mucciacito), whose crew of irresponsible fuck-ups end up in a shootout with the cops, during which Bradley takes out Eliazar's guys to save the cops and keep the situation from escalating. That still does him no favors with the judge, and after he refuses to give up any names of his associates, Bradley is sentenced to seven years in a medium-security prison. Lauren promises to wait for him, assuring him that "that same mistake won't happen again." Determined to keep a low profile and hope he can be paroled after a few years for good behavior, Bradley's plans expectedly go to shit almost immediately: he's visited by the mysterious "Placid Man" (Udo Kier), posing as Lauren's doctor but actually a representative of Eliazar. The Placid Man's boss isn't happy about Bradley's actions during the shootout, which cost him two men and $3 million. Eliazar has taken Lauren hostage with an abortionist at the ready--one who claims to be able to "clip off" the legs of the fetus but let it live, maiming it in utero--if Bradley doesn't pay off his debt by getting himself transferred to Red Leaf, a maximum-security hellhole in upstate New York, where he's to take out a top Eliazar enemy who's being held in cell block 99. Bradley goes to extreme, limb-snapping measures to get himself transferred upstate, and once he's at Red Leaf, he's forced to work his way into cell block 99 while also dealing with conditions that make Gitmo look appealing, plus endlessly bullying guards and sadistic, cigarillo-sucking warden Tuggs (Don Johnson).
If you're familiar with BONE TOMAHAWK, the languid pacing and slow burn methodology of BRAWL IN CELL BLOCK 99 won't come as a surprise. While BRAWL isn't quite on the level of BONE, Zahler again demonstrates a unique ability to build the world in which the film exists on his own terms and at his own pace. He brings a novelist's style and sensibility to the crafting of this story, letting it unfold like an long, engrossing book with vividly detailed characters. With his first two films, Zahler fuses pulpy grindhouse and serious arthouse more effectively than anyone since Quentin Tarantino in his prime. As with BONE TOMAHAWK, which ran over two hours and took 90 minutes to get to the crux of its horror plot, the 132-minute BRAWL IN CELL BLOCK 99 is in no particularly hurry to get to the title event. Instead, for about 105 minutes, we watch a fundamentally decent man who's been dealt one shitty card after another, his ability to keep his head above water growing more tenuous by the day, doing what's necessary to provide, to do what's "right." Vaughn is a revelation here, his every moment on screen seething with a palpable, slow-boiling rage. He knows he's in a bad business, but he's not a bad guy and still tries to do what's "right." He refuses to flip on his employers. When he's told he'll be out in four years and the judge hits him with seven, he shuts up and takes it like a man because his wife and his unborn child are all that matter. And when they're threatened, he's willing to put himself through every punishment imaginable to ensure their well-being. It's a remarkable performance, given a boost in some of the many shockingly violent, often sickening scenes of Bradley snapping limbs, stomping heads, and scraping faces across concrete walls and floors. Like BONE TOMAHAWK, BRAWL isn't all grim and humorless. There's no shortage of quotable tough-guy, B-movie dialogue--when asked how he's doing after losing his job, Bradley shrugs "South of OK, north of cancer;" when a fellow convict wishes their prison was like a state-of-the-art facility in Norway, Bradley snaps "You should aim higher with your wishes;" and during a jaw-off with a Eliazar flunky, patriotic Bradley gets in his face and says "The last time I checked, the colors of the flag weren't red, white and burrito." Released unrated and almost certainly worthy of an NC-17 for its extreme violence, BRAWL IN CELL BLOCK 99 isn't for everyone and may not even be as accessible as the decidedly offbeat BONE TOMAHAWK (however accessible a cannibal horror western can be), but it's an unusual and compelling character piece in the guise of a bonecrushing exploitation grinder.
