S. Craig Zahler
Dragged Across Concrete

Two police officers, a veteran and his younger partner, are suspended when a video of their "strong-arm tactics" is leaked by the media. With no money and no other options, the two soldiers, embittered, mingle with criminals to get their justice, but reality will not be as they expected.

"Dragged Across Concrete" is the classic "Slow Burn," that is, a film with a slow pace that explodes in the final part. I personally love these films and anyone who knows even a little bit about S. Craig Zahler already knew this with the previous "Bone Tomahawk" and "Cell Block 99," two authentic gems of 2 hours and 12 minutes each. Because Zahler wants to delve into the depths of the psyche and rot, in this crime/noir film where the protagonists all have financial problems and must resolve them even by going into very dangerous situations. This "Dragged Across Concrete" lasts 2 and a half hours, but it is absolutely worth it, like for how Zahler unveils the characters' past, how he manages to keep the tension high even in situations where not much happens, or also in moments of irony (the scene where Vince Vaughn eats a sandwich during a stakeout is hilarious). Zahler allows himself to stretch the times also to introduce secondary characters, but who are actually important for the narrative's sake (and not only, like the life's coincidences involving Jennifer Carpenter's character). In the final part, violence and action explode (the latter never over the top), the knots come to a head, and the last 45 minutes are magnetic and adrenaline-pumping. Perhaps the very last minutes do not deliver what they promised and may slightly disappoint, but all this does not affect the value of the film.

Then there's Mel Gibson, delivering a masterful performance, showing that at over 60 years he can still be the protagonist of a genre film and do it without mimicking Martin Riggs from "Lethal Weapon". The banter with colleague Vince Vaughn is beautiful, he's good but perhaps not quite fully out of the comedies he used to star in. The rest of the cast is excellent, notably the great Don Johnson, who plays a small but important role, featuring a nice dialogue scene with Mel Gibson, where you feel like knowing more about the past of the two, once colleagues, now different in rank within the police.

Zahler's picture is an authentic masterpiece, one of those noirs like they don't make anymore, but with the personal touch of the director specialized in depicting outsider characters and their realities, with a quality hardly noteworthy in today's cinema, which is too busy pushing forward too many superhero films and not very focused on genre cinema. Not surprisingly, "Dragged Across Concrete" was released directly on-demand and not in theaters (except for a few limited releases). Personally "DAC" is among the best of 2019.