Review: Dragged Across Concrete

Dragged Across Concrete
Cert: 18 / 159 mins / Dir. S. Craig Zahler / Trailer



Well, now I know why that trailer felt massively uneven, at least. Dragged Across Concrete is like director S. Craig Zahler absolutely fucking hates you and has made something to annoy you for two and a half hours just to prove a point.

We follow a pair of well-worn cops (Brett Ridgeman*¹ played by Mel Gibson, Anthony Lurasetti by Vince Vaughn) as they're placed on unpaid suspension by Chief Lt. Calvert (Don Johnson) for handling an arrest with slightly too much enthusiasm. In the meanwhile, they learn of an upcoming robbery involving recently-released con Henry Johns (Tory Kittles) which they may well be able to intercept - off the books, of course…

SOLID

The story itself is solid enough, but the script is self-indulgent yet artless. You know a movie is going to be challenging when the first act involves three middle-aged white guys sitting round in an office excusing racism. Moreso when those excuses go largely unchallenged (to the point where many are underlined) into acts two and three.

Zahler does not want you to like these characters and he does not want you to like Dragged Across Concrete. Then again, I imagine it's quite difficult to make a buddy-cop thriller featuring two cops that you would not want as your buddy. There are definite notes of Jackie Brown here, but with a deliberate lack of zip, of flow.

CUTTING

Zahler's script (oh yeah, he wrote this as well) is a linear series of 'and this this happened, and then that happened' events, with the most minute of background details methodically explained in conversations between characters while the story happens around them.

With some films you're worried that if you nip out to the loo, you'll miss some vital plot-point. In Dragged Across Concrete, you can be safe that by the time you get back, the protagonists will still be sitting in the same car having the same conversation, completely missing the point of what's meant to be funny*².

MÖTLEY

Why do we need a ten minute detour explaining the backstory of a bank employee who gets caught up in a heist? A lot of people get killed there and we don't hear shit about them, and none of their origin-tales have any relevance on the plot either. How is this doing anything other than giving an already bloated movie an even longer run-time?

Why are the footsteps are louder than the dialogue in this movie? Inside, outside, everywhere. It's like the audio has been recorded by taping a condenser-mic to the floor for each scene. Every single click, tap and rustle of incidental noise is far too loud, for the entirety of the film.

And perhaps most importantly, why has Vaughn's spray-in hair dye come out completely by the time they reach the garage hide-out? All he's been doing is sitting in a car.

Dragged Across Concrete is a meandering, tasteless, incoherent mess of a film, yet for all its faults I don't hate it. Apart from anything else, I don't want to give Zahler the satisfaction…

War On Everyone for sure, and probably more than a bit of Triple 9 while we're at it.



If you see a lengthy run-time as value for money and value that above likeability, sure.



This will be the film's more natural home I suspect, yes.



Not particularly.



Possible-to-likely.



There isn't.



Level 2: This film's got Don Johnson in it, and he was in Django Unchained alongside Sam 'Windu' Jackson.





*¹ You called your brittly-macho, casually racist character "Brett Ridgeman"? We get it mate, we get it. ^{[ BACK ]}

*² Ref the scene in the trailer where Vaughn is eating the sandwich in the car. This is even more drawn out in the movie (that's fine, it's part of the setup), and when he finishes he's greeted with Gibson's curmudgeonly "a single red ant could have eaten that faster". But the joke, cinematically, isn't that he took a long time. Lurasetti is eating at a pace which is completely normal for a human. The joke is the amount of self-indulgent noise he makes while doing it in an otherwise silent car. The punchline should be about eating it more quietly. Then again, nothing else is quiet in this movie, so that joke would probably fall flat, too. ^{[ BACK ]}


DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.

Review: Dumb And Dumber To

Dumb And Dumber To
Cert: 15 / 109 mins / Dir. Peter Farrelly & Bobby Farrelly




Ah, 1994. It seems like only weeks ago that my best friend and I sat in the front row of Canterbury ABC cinema watching Dumb And Dumber, each working our way steadily through a bottle of wine*¹, and laughing uproariously along to Jim Carrey at the height of his game. I had a coffee this evening, and I didn't laugh quite that much. Perhaps this is a lesson.

Set twenty years after the events of the first movie, Dumb And Dumber To sees our heroes reunited and embarking on a road-trip to track down Harry's recently discovered long-lost daughter, Penny; so that Harry can try and convince her to be a kidney donor for him, and so that Lloyd can woo her into marrying him. All they have to do is meet up with Penny at the KEN science expo in El Paso where she's due to give a speech on behalf of her genius adoptive-father. What could possibly go wrong?

With the hapless pair taking a cross-country trip to seek out an attractive young woman whilst becoming embroiled in a botched crime-caper, the film is a thoroughly shameless rehash of what's gone before. It's carried off, for the most part, by the chemistry between Jeff Daniels and Jim Carrey, and they still play the physical gags to perfection after all these years. Sadly, even these two are frequently derailed by a script which is still in its second-draft, peppered with verbal jokes which don't quite work for the characters delivering them, and even a few toe-curling callbacks to the 1994 original*².

All in all the film sort-of-works, coasting largely on the charm of having Harry and Lloyd back together. But this is a film that the Farrelly brothers should have put out in the late 1990's, when a lot of its more off-colour humour and naivety could have been forgiven by being caught up in the whirlwind of delivering an anticipated sequel. Sadly, this isn't the case in 2014; this film didn't need to be made*³. That is was is a testament to the continued bankability of Carrey, Daniels and the Farrellys, but while it's certainly nothing to be ashamed of, I doubt the film will be headlining many of the cast's CVs in the near future.

Extra points though, for a Hot Fuzz-level cameo by Bill Murray.

For all my moaning and over-analysis though, I rather enjoyed Dumb And Dumber To. It's certainly got a higher hit-rate than certain other comedies this year, and as transparently unnecessary as it is, the film comes from a far less cynical place than its stablemates.

But I'd be lying if I said it wouldn't be improved by a bottle of wine…

Well, it sets the tone, certainly.



Mostly, although not always as much as I should have, I suspect.



Look, it's better than Dumb and Dumberer, so yes.



Realistically, it's a DVD.



I won't.



I will.



Didn't hear one, but the volume in Screen Four was set to Deafening™ this evening, and there are a couple of scenes where I may have missed one. I'll go with no, though.

Can we stop putting Rob Riggle in things now, though? He's not as good as he seems to think he is...

*¹ They were more innocent times. Well, they were times when cinema staff were less inclined to search customers on the way into the auditorium, certainly.
*² Basically just Jim Carrey saying a few key phrases from the first film, occasionally, with very little reason or context; the most basic and insulting type of callback.
*³ The most worrying moment is the film's end credits which feature side-by-side clips of the first film and the one you've just watched, essentially reminding you of how fantastic Dumb And Dumber was and also that you haven't enjoyed this one quite as much. Or in the case of many critics, anywhere near as much, apparently.

DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.