Review of Dragged Across Concrete (2019) by Rebecca31 — 04 May 2019

Brett (Mel Gibson) and Anthony (Vince Vaughan), two hard and gritty police detectives get suspended when a video of their unconventional methods appears all over the internet. Short on cash and fed up with their treatment for doing their job they take an opportunity to earn some extra money and end up involved in the criminal underworld in order to get what they feel they deserve.

I really liked the idea for this film I just wasn’t happy with the execution. The pacing was much too slow. I wanted the tension to build the whole time and although there was a lot I liked about this film I just didn’t feel like it came together. It really felt like it wanted to take on more issues and subplots so perhaps a mini-series would have suited this story better. I just couldn’t get invested in the story because every time I did something else happened that just killed the atmosphere. It also isn’t afraid to hold back on the violence without being uber-violent for the sake of it. Another issue that I couldn’t get over was the fact that the sound effects were cranked up to one hundred. At one point Vince Vaughan eating a sandwich for what felt like an eternity was driving me absolutely insane, I just wanted to run out of the screen and not come back. And yes I understand why this was happening, two detectives on a stake out, they’re going to be getting on each other’s nerves and we’re supposed to feel this too but it was pushing me over the edge. Whether these extra loud sound effects was done on purpose to create a more gritty feel to it or it was a genuine mistake, either way it wasn’t working for me, it started off quite funny but quickly moved to annoying and eventually infuriating. The story and the acting was there, Gibson and Vaughan make a convincing pair though I really found it hard to empathize with their characters so I really wasn’t rooting for anyone in this film, honestly I was glad when it finally ended. If this is your first time with Director S. Craig Zahler then I wouldn’t recommend you start with Dragged Across Concrete, perhaps try Brawl in Cellblock 99 and go from there. Recommended for fans of the director’s previous films.