The picture begins with the story of how a black criminal named Henry (Tori Kittles) gets out of prison and returns home, where his disabled brother and mother, who works as a prostitute, are waiting for him. In response to Henry’s reproaches, the mother replies that she has nowhere to get money for life – she was fired from her job a long time ago.
An old friend of Henry named Biscuit (Michael Jai White) invites Henry to take part in some kind of robbery, on which, according to Biscuit, you can raise the dough. Henry agrees.
Two police associates Brett Ridgeman (Mel Gibson) and Anthony Luracetti (Vince Vaughn) lie in wait while preparing to arrest Mexican drug dealer Vasquez. During the arrest, Brett presses Vasquez quite hard – he needs to quickly find out who else is there in the apartment where they are now going to go, and Anthony makes racist remarks about the nationality of the drug dealer.
The process of detention is filmed through the window by a caring citizen from a neighboring apartment, he sends the recording to television, after which, as expected, another scandal flares up on the topic of police excesses.
The chief of these police officers, Lieutenant Calvert (Don Johnson), Brett’s former partner, suspends both of them without pay for a month and a half – until the scandal subsides.
Brett is desperate. His wife suffers from multiple sclerosis, his daughter is constantly attacked by local black hooligans, and Brett needs to somehow transport the family to a more prosperous area. And then he decides, in turn, to rob some bandit – his old friend Friedrich (Udo Kier) gave him a tip on a certain Fogelman (Thomas Kretschman), who clearly planned another robbery. And Brett invites Anthony to participate in this case with him.
***
Mel Gibson, Vince Vaughn, the rating is quite high, the director, who had previously directed a very powerful crime thriller “The Fight in Block 99” – you have to watch, I thought. True, “The Fight in Block 99” was distinguished by a bad script, but there everything was overshadowed by a very tough and brutal production, and Vince Vaughn literally broke through the prison walls with his charisma and power.
Vince Vaughn somehow very unexpectedly managed to radically change his acting type. Prior to that, he starred in various comedies for many years with Will Ferrell, Jon Favreau, Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson. And his signature type is a charming gouging. But suddenly in the TV series “True Detective 2” Vaughn played a very tough guy, gangster businessman Frank Semyon – and the role turned out to be just great. Well, after that – “Fight in Block 99”, where he gave out an even cooler character.
By the way, about the script. Block 99 Fight was written by C Craig Zahler himself, and the wretchedness of this script is all the more surprising because Zahler is actually a fairly successful and popular writer.
Zaler himself also wrote the script for “Roll into Asphalt” (the original title translates as “Drag on Concrete”, so the United Statesn adaptation, in my opinion, is quite successful). And what did he get as a result?
It turned out that he had a very long and fairly drawn-out police drama, where, as such, the action took about fifteen to twenty minutes. Almost all the rest of the time – the leisurely sitting of two police partners in ambush, eating buns, drinking coffee and philosophical conversations about what this world has come to in general. The conversations, by the way, are quite interesting – in fact, this picture is largely based on them. About what the modern media has become in general, about the fact that society is ready to forgive the most heinous criminals and is not ready to forgive the police officers who catch these criminals, about why everything is so unfairly arranged, and about what can be done about all this .
Mel Gibson’s Brett is an elderly, tired and desperate cop – in fact, Martin Riggs did not retire from service – who honestly did his job all his life, risking his life, but at the same time did not fit in with his superiors, politicians and the media, did not compromise principles. And for this, in his pre-retirement age, he is still sitting in ambush, and his family is forced to live in a wretched apartment in a terrible area. But Brett’s former partner, who always understood well where the wind was blowing, is now the head of the police station, and in general – he got a good job. Mel played Brett wonderfully, I really liked it.
Anthony Vince Vaughn is such a combination of a charming gouge who talks a lot and can enjoy such a simple thing as eating a pie, and a rather tough cop. Also a very good role, and together with Mel they made a great couple.
Director C Craig Zahler, shooting this film, with a somewhat sadistic pleasure in relation to the audience, violates rather unshakable cinematic laws. When the film began with a rather long episode about some kind of black criminal, I at first thought that I had taken the wrong picture for viewing. How is it – a film with Gibson and Vaughn in the lead role, and they show me some kind of Henry?
In the middle of an already lengthy picture, Zaler also inserted an absolutely unnecessary episode with Jennifer Carpenter, who does not want to go to work because she is afraid to leave a small child at home. There, and so the action did not develop at all rapidly, and such things completely slow down the pace. Well, here he is, Zaler, he believes that everything is possible for him.
He also madly surprised me with the pre-final scene, which, I will say very carefully, featured a professional policeman with a gun and what came of it. I understand that Zaler, out of the same sadism, just wanted to show the audience that this film is not entirely about police partners, but honestly – couldn’t they have come up with something smarter? However, I still remember from “The Fight in Block 99” that Zaler usually does not bother with at least some logic of what is happening.
Despite the protractedness and some moments of mockery by the director of the audience, it’s all well staged. The dialogues between Brett and Anthony are very interesting, the mysterious killer in a black hat on his head and black glasses is terrifying, good action from a bank robbery is also present, and it is filmed, as Zaler tends to, hard and realistic.
In general, I looked not without pleasure, although due to the long duration I had to watch this picture in two steps.
But I note that Zaler still needs to work better on the script and stop mocking the audience. Because the audience is, on the one hand, like plasticine, and a skillful director-manipulator can get anything from them, but, on the other hand, someday it will come to the audience how openly they are being mocked, and then Zaler will not seem a little .
PS I listened to the United Statesn dubbing of this film on iTunes. In my opinion, very well done. I specifically listened to how they would translate the exclamation “Anchovies” (anchovies), with which Anthony expressed his disapproval in the film. (Apparently, he doesn’t like anchovies very much, it happens.) But they didn’t begin to translate, in the United Statesn version he just says: “Anchovies”.
Roll into asphalt / Dragged Across Concrete movie meaning
Director: S Craig Zaler Cast: Mel Gibson, Vince Vaughn, Laurie Holden, Tori Kittles, Don Johnson, Udo Kier, Fred Melamed, Jennifer Carpenter, Michael Jai White, Thomas Kretschmann
Police thriller, Canada-USA, 2018, 159 min.