Dragged Across Concrete
***Warning, contains spoilers***
Movies are getting longer, more and more films excluding horror movies seem to be well over 2 hours long these days. Avengers: Endgame was a great example. That in itself is perfectly fine, if, like Avengers there is more than enough to keep you engrossed and not looking at your watch thinking about how long you still have left to go of the movie.
Dragged Across Concrete (from now on I will refer to the movie as DAC) is not that far off three hours long. It's certainly pushing two hours and forty five minutes. I knew this before I went into see the movie so that wasn't an issue as, by the reviews it apparently was a very good movie.
DAC also stars two legends of the movie world, namely Vince Vaughn and Mel Gibson and, some cameos from famous actors and actresses as well, the most memorable and upsetting of those is Jennifer Carpenters cameo role.
I was really intrigued to see this movie, especially because Vaughn is a comedy movie actor, big time. Hits like Dodgeball and Wedding Crashers atest to that. I wouldn't expect to see him in a role like this, but other comedy actors have moved over to gripping thriller type stuff, such as Jason Bateman and Melissa McCarthy and it's worked well.
On top of that obviously Mel Gibson is a complete legend. He has been in countless movies, most famously the Lethal Weapon movies and has just been epic.
Firstly, credit where credit is due, both actors play their roles perfectly. You would never guess that Vaughn was most famous for being a comedy actor from this role, however he cleverly introduced elements of light heartedness into this movie, probably gained from his comedy movie background, such as the scene where he eats a roll of some sort. Unfortunately those moments, whilst amusing, are very few and far between. This is not a light hearted movie, in fact it's the complete opposite.
Gibson plays his role with his usual gusto, and shows that he's clearly still got it. Brilliant acting from both lead actors.
However there are many problems with this movie, unfortunately. The first one is the length of it. As I said at the start of my review a long movie is fine if there is enough to fill the time and keep the viewer engrossed. This movie was simply boring in quite a large part of the first half of the movie. In fact, the first half of the movie is simply a very very slow build up to the events of Carpenters scene in her cameo, where, from then on, the movie becomes incredibly engrossing and infinitely watchable. Sadly though by then we are about halfway through the movie.
You could quite easily have taken out more than half of the first half of this movie and had a much better movie, rather than pointless boring filler scenes. The stakeout they do on the suspects is a great proof of this, far too long and dull. In fact it was so dull that a member of the audience in the showing I went too fell asleep and was snoring so loudly that it was only my tutting that woke him up! I can't condone what he was doing but I can completely understand why he fell asleep in the first half of this movie. Needless to say, he was awake for the second half!
My other complaint is the complete abscense of any form of hope in this movie, the complete depressing world it exists in. Don't get me wrong, there is a lot to be upset about with the world but there is also a lot to be happy with as well. In this movie, virtually nothing happy happens, (spoiler alert) the two lead characters are shot and killed, Vaughns character is turned down for marriage by his other half, Gibsons daughter has juice thrown all over her, it's such a sad world this movie exists in. I know these things happen but you leave this movie feeling really down, believe me.
The movie definitely deserves it's 18 certificate, at the very start of this movie there is a sex scene that is very graphic, with certain things that I would rather have not seen, and there is an horrific scene where a guy is killed then has his stomach cut open so the bad guys can retrieve a key he has swallowed. Horrendous.
I think though, by far the most upsetting scene is Carpenters cameo scene, which she brilliantly acted. Carpenter is about to start her first day back at work after giving birth, she's the one working whilst her partner looks after the baby as she earns more. She doesn't want to go but her partner, being cruel to be kind, makes her go and eventually she does. Not long after getting to the bank where she works robbers burst in and eventually kill her and most of the other bank workers. In her death scene she holds her babies sock and says please give this to my child, but the robbers ignore her and just blow her head off. Horrific and very upsetting.
The acting in this movie is brilliant, however it is far too long and too depressing for me, maybe it's because I'm getting older, who knows, but I just found it too depressing and as I previously said, long.
A good movie but with a less depressing storyline and a much shorter running time it could have been a great movie. Thank goodness for the small bit of hope in the end scene.
Good movie but could have been far better, worth watching for Vaughn or Gibson fans, otherwise wait till it comes out on Netflix or Amazon Prime. 4 stars awarded.
*This review is all my own work, please don't reproduce without my permission but please visit my advertisers pages as they help keep the blog going thankyou. :)
Movies are getting longer, more and more films excluding horror movies seem to be well over 2 hours long these days. Avengers: Endgame was a great example. That in itself is perfectly fine, if, like Avengers there is more than enough to keep you engrossed and not looking at your watch thinking about how long you still have left to go of the movie.
Dragged Across Concrete (from now on I will refer to the movie as DAC) is not that far off three hours long. It's certainly pushing two hours and forty five minutes. I knew this before I went into see the movie so that wasn't an issue as, by the reviews it apparently was a very good movie.
DAC also stars two legends of the movie world, namely Vince Vaughn and Mel Gibson and, some cameos from famous actors and actresses as well, the most memorable and upsetting of those is Jennifer Carpenters cameo role.
I was really intrigued to see this movie, especially because Vaughn is a comedy movie actor, big time. Hits like Dodgeball and Wedding Crashers atest to that. I wouldn't expect to see him in a role like this, but other comedy actors have moved over to gripping thriller type stuff, such as Jason Bateman and Melissa McCarthy and it's worked well.
On top of that obviously Mel Gibson is a complete legend. He has been in countless movies, most famously the Lethal Weapon movies and has just been epic.
Firstly, credit where credit is due, both actors play their roles perfectly. You would never guess that Vaughn was most famous for being a comedy actor from this role, however he cleverly introduced elements of light heartedness into this movie, probably gained from his comedy movie background, such as the scene where he eats a roll of some sort. Unfortunately those moments, whilst amusing, are very few and far between. This is not a light hearted movie, in fact it's the complete opposite.
Gibson plays his role with his usual gusto, and shows that he's clearly still got it. Brilliant acting from both lead actors.
However there are many problems with this movie, unfortunately. The first one is the length of it. As I said at the start of my review a long movie is fine if there is enough to fill the time and keep the viewer engrossed. This movie was simply boring in quite a large part of the first half of the movie. In fact, the first half of the movie is simply a very very slow build up to the events of Carpenters scene in her cameo, where, from then on, the movie becomes incredibly engrossing and infinitely watchable. Sadly though by then we are about halfway through the movie.
You could quite easily have taken out more than half of the first half of this movie and had a much better movie, rather than pointless boring filler scenes. The stakeout they do on the suspects is a great proof of this, far too long and dull. In fact it was so dull that a member of the audience in the showing I went too fell asleep and was snoring so loudly that it was only my tutting that woke him up! I can't condone what he was doing but I can completely understand why he fell asleep in the first half of this movie. Needless to say, he was awake for the second half!
My other complaint is the complete abscense of any form of hope in this movie, the complete depressing world it exists in. Don't get me wrong, there is a lot to be upset about with the world but there is also a lot to be happy with as well. In this movie, virtually nothing happy happens, (spoiler alert) the two lead characters are shot and killed, Vaughns character is turned down for marriage by his other half, Gibsons daughter has juice thrown all over her, it's such a sad world this movie exists in. I know these things happen but you leave this movie feeling really down, believe me.
The movie definitely deserves it's 18 certificate, at the very start of this movie there is a sex scene that is very graphic, with certain things that I would rather have not seen, and there is an horrific scene where a guy is killed then has his stomach cut open so the bad guys can retrieve a key he has swallowed. Horrendous.
I think though, by far the most upsetting scene is Carpenters cameo scene, which she brilliantly acted. Carpenter is about to start her first day back at work after giving birth, she's the one working whilst her partner looks after the baby as she earns more. She doesn't want to go but her partner, being cruel to be kind, makes her go and eventually she does. Not long after getting to the bank where she works robbers burst in and eventually kill her and most of the other bank workers. In her death scene she holds her babies sock and says please give this to my child, but the robbers ignore her and just blow her head off. Horrific and very upsetting.
The acting in this movie is brilliant, however it is far too long and too depressing for me, maybe it's because I'm getting older, who knows, but I just found it too depressing and as I previously said, long.
A good movie but with a less depressing storyline and a much shorter running time it could have been a great movie. Thank goodness for the small bit of hope in the end scene.
Good movie but could have been far better, worth watching for Vaughn or Gibson fans, otherwise wait till it comes out on Netflix or Amazon Prime. 4 stars awarded.
*This review is all my own work, please don't reproduce without my permission but please visit my advertisers pages as they help keep the blog going thankyou. :)
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