Dragged Across Concrete (2018, S. Craig Zahler) (Patreon)

Zahler clearly wants to be his generation's Don Siegel, right down to inspiring heated debate about whether/to what extent he's a reactionary. I've mostly been a defender thus far, and it seems clear to me that some of the deliberately outrageous scenes here—e.g. Gibson and Vaughn's badass cops pretending they can't understand a (nude!) Latinx woman who speaks perfect English—constitute deliberate trolling of his critics. Depiction is not endorsement, etc. But it really does feel as if we're meant to identify primarily with the sense of self-righteous grievance expressed by our suspended "heroes," and perhaps to bridle at the happy ending that other characters receive. Zahler still complicates things enough to achieve plausible deniability, but I'm coming around to the idea that he may firmly believe some things that I find repugnant.

Then again, virtually all exploitation films are conservative—nature of the beast. Politics aside, there's plenty to dig about Concrete, even if it's not quite as bold, distinctive, or just memorably fucked-up as were its two predecessors. Gibson turns in what surely must be his finest performance of this century, clamping himself down so tight that you can practically hear metal scrape metal every time he moves or speaks. The plot, once it finally emerges, proves surprisingly conventional, but Zahler remains admirably and perversely committed to slow, methodical escalation, flavored with his signature pungent dialogue. I confess that I was slightly distracted by how much two of the three bad guys* resemble Elmo Oxygen from Schizopolis, and Jennifer Carpenter's small role feels gratuitously sadistic (mostly due to the over-the-top manner in which she's "humanized" when introduced; there's a "fuck you for caring" aspect to what follows). But I've now experienced over seven hours of this dude's brutalist worldview, and there hasn't been a dull moment yet. That counts for a lot.

* Not that there are any "good guys," apart from the kid in the wheelchair and the bank employees, but you know who I mean. The bad guys who murder people. The even badder guys. The strong bads.