User reviews

This is an usual movie. It has a crime noir feel, although not sure it is crime noir. It has a True Detective feel in a movie formate. There are some strange , noticeable pacing choices in this movie that intrigued me- like the interest in food consumption. It is a crime drama with some intersecting stories and a stellar cast. Vince Vaughn and Mel Gibson play suspended Detectives looking to improve their fortunes. They are definitely imperfect, but not as imperfect as their roles and accusations may seem. Michael Jai White and Tory Kittles play hard up criminals also seeking to improve their fortunes. Obviously those two paths cross. There is more here. There is a subplot that makes this more interesting and complicated. The Direction is unusual-as I said the pacing is very deliberate. The cast and performances are the strength of this one, even by the minor characters. There is a through line of humanity and struggle in this one. This is worth seeing but do not be fooled-it is a crime movie, not really an action one.

This was such a different kind of movie and such a different kind of film making that I'm tempted to call it original-not a word I throw around lightly. I've been complaining a lot about long runtimes for movies these days and at 2:39:00 this is one of the longest I've seen recently. It didn't feel long at all. It felt like a series the way they let things play out in so many scenes.

Almost from the beginning I noticed that this movie was pulling off a sort of magic act of showing the actors make their way through incredibly long sequences which thoroughly defined them in a way I've never seen in a movie. As I mentioned, TV series have the luxury to do this but when they try to duplicate this process in feature films it just seems bloated and long-winded. This was also bloated and long-winded, but only in parts.

The only character development that I thought was flawed was one of the robbers who is some sort of psycho, but that didn't take away from the overall story. It just seemed over-the-top and didn't make much sense.

The dialogue between the cops and the robbers was believable, exciting, entertaining, and original while being totally free of the clichés that derail most cop dramas.

Unnecessarily violent, over-the-top violent with bad guys who are cartoonishly bad. Why can't criminals just be criminals and not serial killers and monsters?

Hard-nosed police detective Brett Ridgeman (Mel Gibson) is bitter at being stuck despite a record of big busts. When he and his partner Anthony Lurasetti (Vince Vaughn) are filmed doing a rough drug bust, his former partner Chief Lt. Calvert (Don Johnson) is forced to suspend them. His ex-cop wife Melanie (Laurie Holden) is disabled with MS. His daughter is constantly being bullied by the black kids in the rough neighborhood from where they are unable escape. He recruits Lurasetti to rob criminal Lorentz Vogelmann expecting him doing a simple drug deal. Black friends Henry Johns (Tory Kittles) and Biscuit are hired by Vogelmann's crew as backup for a mystery job. Vogelmann turns out to be a ruthless bank robber and a remorseless killer.

Mel Gibson is pretty interesting as a rough cop. I like the Blue-Lives-Matter aspect of his story. There are a few extraneous scenes with the other characters. I wouldn't mind more scenes about Henry Johns. For example, there is no reason to do the scene with Jennifer Carpenter. Vogelmann doesn't need explaining other than a boogeyman. This has some good crime thrills although I don't understand what happened with the female hostage. I saw it coming and I still don't like it. I don't see the realism in the final co-operation. There are lots of little annoyances in an otherwise solid crime drama.

Mel gibson, my oh my. vince vaughn, byo byo. this is not the kind of movie i wouldve expected to see 'em in. terrible story and a incoherent plot, with some original idean, but with 100's of other cliche's.

its 2 cops being suspended because of a violent arrest. and because of dire strait circumstances, they plan to rob some robbers whos planning a bank robbery. well and not to forget the longlasting stake out it turned into, and we were waiting,waiting and waiting for nearly 85 minutes till the chain started running, and the cars to start rollin' and the shootout to begin. its has some twists in the end that i didnt expect, i shall admit, but allinall its a longlasting bore of heist action, that you maybe should see, but that i, the grumpy old man, does not recommend.

I had big expectations after Bone Tomahawk. For the first couple of minutes, specially until the scene with the lieutenant, I thought I'm watching something great. The middle part became too much, too exaggerated, repetitive. It ended up as a great movie afteral, close what we had in the 90's. But. Whats this with anchovies? Is that supposed to be funny? All that language of flowers. Too much. Too fake.

No music, no action, no fast pacing, no quick cuts - this was a refreshing and rare anomaly from Hollywood for a change. The plot itself offers nothing particularly new, but that's not the point. What matters is how the story is told. This story was told better than average and was allowed to build in unhurried fashion. This gave a little more depth to the characters and events. Of course, the idiosyncratic characteristics of the two police characters (probabilities and anjovis) were perhaps a bit overdone. All in all, however, it is a very watchable film. Perhaps the very last photos of the glorious castle-like house should have been left out. This kind of fairytale ending was perhaps a bit too much of traditional Hollywood style.

It's a fine - somewhat of a gangster - movie. The only problem I had was for the story to be told way to slow. So slow you aren't tensed up but annoyed by the lack of progress.

The main characters play their role beautifully though and it is some sad part to both the playing and the story which is something one can like as part of that kind of story.

Mr. Zahler is pretty well known to have conservative views on the world which almost border on edgelord-y. I can live with that, he has a right to express them as anyone else. This movie however had so many problems storywise (aka plotholes) that I simply cannot look over:

• So the bad guys want to buy a reinforced truck, and the way to do that is to rob (and kill) small businesses and citizens? While wearing all black with masks on and no one would ever witness anything??

• Then, this film clearly plays in modern times with cell phones that can record videos that have GPS on them. Yet not one of these two cops had the idea that their phones could be tracked to the place of the robbery? That was literally the first thing I was thinking about! "Turn off your phones!"(Not that it mattered in the end of course).

While I really like Brawl and Bone Tomahawk for what they were (pulpy B-Movie entertainment), here Zahler seemingly wanted to do something more Tarantino-like, with multiple characters and story arcs to come together. And while it was tense at times some of the exposition scenes were laughable (the whole scene with Don Johnson should be taught at film school for how NOT to write dialogue), his female characters were ridiculous and a lot of his views are pretty outdated. This could have been a great movie at the hands of someone that wasn't as obsessed with race and gender politics as Zahler is.

An interesting piece this. The lengthy runtime put me off watching this longer than it should have. Editing was this things biggest flaw, since a good half hour should have been trimmed either in simply deleting certain scenes or addressing the pacing. Also some of the subplots were unnecessary for the outcome. Dialogue was very Tarantino-esque, and worked rather well although it still kind of mimicked the real thing. Things were pretty graphic at times almost excessively taking into account the scope of the film. Acting was quite good across the board. Mel Gibson turned in a rather good performance although I have a hard time taking him seriously after all the b movie escapades he's had recent years. Vince Vaughn was also ok doing his true detective impression. They were really heavy on the percentages. Ending was not as bad as I thought, but still a bit bland. Had to check if there's a actual place called bulwark...there wasn't.

This film is objectively pretty good. There are some very solid performances and the craftsmanship is better than in many higher budget films. I also don't have much to complain about in terms of storytelling. But there are two reasons why I do NOT recommend this film to most people: If you don't like long, drawn out stories with very little action in between the intense action scenes, this might not be for you. And the second (much more impactful) reason is that this movie is insanely violent and dark, pretty much throughout the second half. And I mean guts sticking out and sympathetic, innocent characters being mutilated and mercilessly killed with the camera directly showing it. It is absolutely not for the even remotely faint hearted. And I am typing this as someone who has seen quite some ugly scenes in films. So in short, I like the craftsmanship and the first half but unless I wanna outright shock someone I will not recommend this movie to anyone who doesn't in particular ask me for some very violent and dark films.

I suppose half the population would find Gibson's famous conservatism being injected into the script a welcomed voice while the other half would find it a bit overbearing of which I'm a part, but I actually didn't mind that he voices the classic conservative arguments.

Definitely for those who like violence in their movies some of which are borderline unacceptable unethical depictions, but again in a conservative sense it does happen. Creative in the sense it didn't have that redux repeated many times before feel.

Several depictions of our detectives seemed not so real. First, the philosophical discussions as they chase the baddies. Second, the hand over hand steering is really poor driving mechanics even for old ladies let alone trained pursuit drivers. Third, the always dumb tailing/following of baddies for miles and expecting not to be noticed. Fourth, immediately after the bank robbery how did they know someone had died? Lastly, they seemed not care about leaving DNA & fingerprints during their extracurricular money earning venture.

If this movie was like 30-40 minutes shorter it would be much better than it was now it run like 2 hours and a half. that ruined the movie in the sense we got useless filler scenes like those criminals who drove the truck for like.....15 minutes or so. at some point the movie became tiresome and that was due to it's duration. the beginning of the movie was good. last like 30 minutes were also good. the general premise was good. mel Gibson was also good. the movie is worth it's time but I would gave it more than 6 out of 10 if it had lasted less than 2 hours. also the ending......was not what I expected it. usually the guy with the gun has the advantage especially if that guy is named MEL GIBSON.......LOL

This is an ok heist movie, that is neither glaringly bad, or overly good, but lands squarely somewhere in the middle. The pacing is slow, the dialogue is a bit forced at times, but overall the story moves to a decent climax. Not much else to say other than it is worth a watch, as long as you don't expect too much. Gibson's performance feels tired and uninspired, but that may be just the character he was playing. Vince Vaughn gave a lifeless performance, as it he were phoning it in from the next county.

So many people came into this movie expecting something very different, most likely due to Mel Gibson.

The director, S. Craig Zahler, is best known for "Bone Tomahawk" and "Brawl on Cell Block 99". Both these movies are extremely similar to "Dragged Across Concrete".

Tomahawk and Brawl are both slow burns, barely (if any) music, character-focused, etc. They both are realistic and have random acts of extreme violence. This movie is no different.

I will say this is my least favorite of Zahler's. "Brawl on Cell Block 99" is an amazing movie, "Bone Tomahawk" is only slightly behind it. This one is definitely goes in the back of the line, although it was a decent watch.

If you haven't seen this director's work, I would highly recommend watching one of the aforementioned movies first - if you like it, then give this one a try.

Dragged across concrete is a meticulous and gritty crime thriller with an engaging plot and well constructed characters. People have called it Tarantino esc and I'm inclined to agree, though the movie still has it's own unique sense of style which is great. Still, it's not perfect, it's intentionally quite slow paced and while it does make the payoffs more satisfying in the end it really drags in certain scenes and can be hard to sit through at times. A particular scene involving Vince von and an egg salad sandwich was a particularly memorable example. On top of that, while the dialogue is charming it can seem a bit too idiosyncratic at times and can get a little obnoxious at times.

Did Zahler work as a butcher before ?!! based on his previous movie "Bone Tomahawk", he tends to show bodies explosions and guts, and here in this movie is same but different time & story. Also he likes to make unexpected ending, you couldn't guess the end with Zahler and that's cool but sometimes he made it so complicated which makes you feel confused.

By the way, the movie was good but not perfect, i like the funny conversations between Mel & Vince, it gives the movie sense of humor which keep you attractive to the movie.

In contrast, when i watched the killing scenes, i felt like am watching "Scary Movie", i didn't feel it was an action or crime movie, i think this back to the directing of these scenes, i was hoping to see more serious action and crime.

As is the case with S. Craig Zahler's previous two feature films, the well regarded and cult favourites Bone Tomahawk and Brawl in Cell Block 99, your enjoyment of his newest grizzly feature Dragged Across Concrete will depend on how much you like a slow burn, in this case a really slow burn.

Officially clocked in at 2 hours and 39 minutes in runtime, Concrete will test the patience of even the most patient of viewers, as Zahler's dialogue heavy examination of Mel Gibson and Vince Vaughan's boundary pushing suspended police officers Ridgeman and Lurasetti is an often downright snail paced experience that features some great scenes and top-notch script work but also fails to justify why Zahler needed 2 and half hours to tell a relatively simple tale.

This is a problem that has affected all of Zahler's films so far, and while I for one am all for storytelling that takes its time to set up character, place and narrative, I've yet to understand why his films seem to escape the editing room suite on each instance.

There's a number of seemingly irrelevant scenes in Concrete, from long-winded conversations between Gibson and Vaughan as they tail a bunch of criminals, stoic acts of unimaginable violence (that have become a staple of Zahler's works) and rather pointless scenes with side characters that don't add a whole lot to the narrative as a whole and while this slowly paced approach ratchets up the tension in the films brilliant last act, so much of the lead up is unnecessarily hard to enjoy.

It's a shame this is the case because Zahler has crafted a unique concept around the well-worn corrupt police sub-genre and also unearthed a great double act we never knew we needed in the form of Gibson and Vaughan's partnership.

A controversial casting decision considering Gibson's colourful past private life dealings, the choice to cast Gibson in the role of a grumbled and potentially racist cop is a brave move from Zahler and one that works wonders for the film with Gibson as good as his been in years as the had enough of all the rubbish Ridgeman.

As a film fan it's great to see Gibson given such screen-time and when partnered with Vaughan (who stole the show in Cell Block 99), Zahler manages to really bring Concrete to life through some wise casting, that goes hand in hand with stand-out cameo appearances by Jennifer Carpenter as a bank employee and Michael Jai White as a petty criminal in over his head.

Final Say -

Filled with Zahler's biting dialogue, hard-hitting violence and self-indulgent run-time, Dragged Across Concrete has its moments and a brilliant pairing of Vaughan and Gibson but one can't help but feel a more streamlined and energetic approach would've made this gritty experience so much more.

3 back of the van autopsy's out of 5

The movie is not dissimilar from his previous efforts. Violent and about 15-20 minutes too long. It is easy to tell that the director was greatly influenced by Michael Mann and Quentin Tarantino, He copies liberally from both. Mel Gibson turns in a solid effort although not as good as some of his other recent efforts. I am not familiar with Michael Jai White but i thought he was very good. I didn't really buy into Vince Vaughns character and the female lead has five minutes of screen time. Also there are a couple of question marks with regards to the actions of the main characters during the last 10 minutes but by then I didn't care. This movie is ok if you are a male and have nothing better to do for 2.5 hours.

First i voted 8 but after remembering the opening scene i lowered it to 6. I hate hollywood's sex promoting behaviors. If you are making a high quality movie why would you need the urge to promote sex, it definitely lowers the movie and production quality.