Posted on 09/09/2018 2:05:49 PM PDT by Drew68
VENICE, Italy—Two years ago, the Venice Film Festival hosted the world premiere of Hacksaw Ridge, a World War II drama directed by Mel Gibson. The film marked Gibson’s first turn behind the camera in a decade, since he’d drunkenly slurred “the Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world,” pleaded guilty to battering his then-partner Oksana Grigorieva, and was caught on audio saying she was “asking” to be “raped by a pack of n****rs.” Despite never demonstrating much in the way of genuine contrition, he was treated to a prolonged standing ovation on the Lido—the opening salvo of a “comeback tour” replete with rave reviews, a $175 million box office gross, and six Academy Award nominations. This f**k you attitude, coupled with a rich history of racism, misogyny and homophobia, has elevated Gibson to folk-hero status among the far-right. He is their Oprah.
And they’re going to be very happy with his new film.
Making its world premiere in Venice, Dragged Across Concrete’s premise is as follows: a pair of detectives, Brett Ridgeman (Mel Gibson) and Anthony Lurasetti (Vince Vaughn) are caught on tape applying excessive force to a Hispanic prisoner in handcuffs, in the form of Ridgeman grinding his boot into the man’s neck until it emits a cracking sound. (During the bust, Ridgeman and Lurasetti also mock a scared, naked Latina suspect, claiming they can’t understand what she’s saying due to her accent. Both scenes are played for laughs.) With the tape destined to go viral, Ridgeman and Lurasetti are suspended for six weeks without pay, though the chief of police (Don Johnson) is sympathetic to their plight, delivering a rambling sermon about how being branded a “racist” today is akin to getting labeled a “communist” in the 1950s—or, to quote the president, this is a WITCH HUNT! and these two violent cops are the real victims.
Though a six-week suspension seems like a mild punishment, especially considering this is the third time Ridgeman’s been busted for using excessive force, he is in desperate need of cash. You see, his wife Melanie (Laurie Holden) has MS and his daughter is bullied by black kids on her four-block trek to school. Worried that those same black kids will rape their daughter once she matures, they vow to move to a better neighborhood (presumably one with less black people). “I never thought I was a racist until living in this area,” Melanie says, her husband nodding in agreement. So Ridgeman cooks up a plan to rob an out-of-town crook, and ropes in Lurasetti with a Forgotten Man spiel: “I don’t politick and I don’t change with the times,” he explains, lamenting how that matters more in today’s world than “good, honest work.”
Things don’t go as planned, of course.
Dragged Across Concrete is written and directed by S. Craig Zahler, whose previous film, Brawl in Cell Block 99, also bowed in Venice. Unlike Brawl, a slick work of poetic brutality about a hard-on-his-luck pugilist (Vaughn) who’s forced to smash in skulls to save his pregnant wife, Zahler’s latest is a cold-blooded saga that revels in the violence it inflicts on women and minorities, in particular. Its two most sadistic scenes consist of a newly-minted mom whose fingers and face are shredded off with a machine gun, and a black man (Michael Jai White’s Biscuit) who is graphically disemboweled in order to retrieve a swallowed key. After removing his heart and intestines, a white henchman warns another not to puncture his liver because “it stinks… black guys especially.”
There’s a lot more objectionable nonsense in this film, from Gibson and Vaughn’s characters prattling on about how gender lines have been erased, to a black character (Tory Kittles’ Henry Johns) whose grammar is constantly corrected by the white men around him, to a black woman who rails against her “cock-sucking faggot” of a husband for leaving her for another man. Defenders of Dragged will argue that its general sense of nihilism—or its ending—will justify such hate. They’ll be wrong. This is one ugly film. And at 158 minutes, with a script that shoehorns words like “assuage” and “lament” into its tough-guy banter, it’s a chore to get through.
“I’m not chasing the biggest audience and I’m comfortable with losing some of them. There are obviously remarks that are throwaway jokes and there are lines that aren’t politically correct,” offered Zahler at a press conference for the film. “There are lines that will get people to hate me, and that is your right to do so.”
“Now I’m a pretty firm believer that depiction does not equal endorsement, especially in crime fiction. I also believe that someone like Quentin Tarantino has often taken a little too much pleasure in pushing that idea to a certain point and then unpleasantly winking about it. But I do not agree with the reviews of “Dragged” that call it a right-wing fantasy. This Zahler film tamps down the outlandishness of “Brawl” (but doesn’t entirely dispense with it) and ushers in some Elmore Leonard the better to construct, with great patience and devilish craft (this is potentially one of the most engrossing 158-minute films you’ll ever sit through), a story of two criminal schemes that converge and go very wrong. “
He is a long time Austin leftist. Believe nothing-from the website.
What is she bichen about? The left got four anti-gun movies out of Mel in his early days.
‘Or “Payback”, starring Gibson as a bad guy seeking revenge.’
I remember the critics being in high dudgeon because of the smoking in that movie...
At the end of the day, all I ask from Hollywood is to entertain me. Before they became obsessed with virtue signaling, SJW activism, and tokenism, it used to only be about, "Let's make a good movie that entertains people."
And really, that's all I care about. I don't care if it's Sean Penn or Mel Gibson. Just make a good movie.
“Blood Father” from 2016 starring Mel was a good action flick for grownups.
We have a nice black family in our neighborhood who isn't in the least bit shy about letting people know that they moved here precisely because our working class neighborhood has less black people.
Funny, how that works, isn't it?
I can’t wait to see it...to satisfy my far, right-wing fantasies.
Great movie - never expected such a performance from Vince Vaughn. Fantastic.
I think it was in one of Thomas Sowell’s books where he related how middle class blacks moved as poorer blacks moved in from down south. It really isn’t rocket science. We all want to live in areas where the local ‘culture’ appeals to our way of life.
I love how to a leftist, this is automatically absurd and not true.
That was my take on it too. Based on the review, the movie is the standard Hollywood celebration of violence and cruelty, with the white cops portrayed as abhorrent criminals. I’ll pass.
And what LA cop would rob a bank to steal money? That’s what fake disability retirements are for.
If the far Left Daily Beast hates it, that’s all the endorsement I need. I’ll be sure to go watch it.
Nice to read an unbiased review (COUGH, COUGH).
I truly appreciate the heads-up.
If Gibson is smart he would create his own distribution company on line, and sell it to the consumer directly.
I can then watch it at home, comfortably, without a sticky floor, animals with cell phone shining in my eyes, no head lice and bedbugs or $8 popcorn. No little orangutangs kicking my seat.
Sounds like a win-win for everybody.
The answer to the first is to make the leftist 'tards heads explode; what are they gonna do? put him in a bigger doghouse?
As to the second? Why not? You never watched the mildly successful TV series The Shield? Personally, I couldn't watch it.
As a bonus, it will make leftist 'tards heads explode.
What's not to like?
This is a legitimate fear for millions of parents.
The fact that your kids are at risk from nonwhite violence does not make you a bad person.
Tolerating or ignoring it does.
LOL
To my way of thinking that Oprah comparison only proved that Oprah is the lefts very on homegrown black racist.
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