'Dragged Across Concrete' Is the No. 1 Film on Netflix in the U.S. Despite Controversy

Action flick 'Dragged Across Concrete' is these days booming on Netflix. Let's give an explanation for the controversy at the heart of S. Craig Zahler's film.

When forgotten movies are introduced into the Netflix sphere, they're frequently given new lifestyles. Taking the No. 1 spot on the streamer's Top 10 Movies in the U.S. listing on March 21, 2023, is a lesser-known 2018 crime flick from director S. Craig Zahler. Starring Oscar winner Mel Gibson (Braveheart) (who has famously been accused of anti-Semitism, racism, homophobia, and home violence) and Vince Vaughn (Wedding Crashers), Dragged Across Concrete follows two cops who dip their feet in the felony underworld after being suspended for the use of excessive force on a suspect.

With the film making waves on Netflix 5 years after its release, new viewers are offered to its arguable material. From its shoddy handling of police brutality to its obvious rejection of political correctness, let's give an explanation for the controversy at the center of Dragged Across Concrete.

'Dragged Across Concrete' has been dubbed a "racist and sadistic" nightmare of a criminal offense thriller.

As mentioned by means of The Atlantic, an early scene sees white police officers Brett Ridgeman (Mel Gibson) and Anthony Lurasetti (Vince Vaughn) use excessive power with out flinching. While one officer places his booted foot on a suspect’s head, the other makes a laugh of his Latina girlfriend's accent, evaluating her voice to the cackle of a dolphin.

Though the protagonists are promptly punished for his or her callous, irrelevant actions — which are stuck on digicam — their boss, Lieutenant Calvert (Don Johnson), apparently suspends them on account of the present local weather.

“Like cell phones, and just as irritating, politics are all over the place. Being branded a racist in today’s public forum is like being accused of communism in the ’50s,” the boss says, frustrated through PC tradition. “Whether it’s a in all probability offensive observation made in a non-public telephone call or the indelicate remedy of a minority who sells medicine to children, the entertainment trade, formerly known as the information, needs villains.”

It's as if all three men are in settlement that the violent, dehumanizing incident was once mere horseplay (a conservative angle The Ringer's Scott Tobias believes is provide at the back of the digicam as neatly).

Subsequent to the companions' six-week suspension without pay, Anthony Lurasetti dares to say “it’s best cops that the machine is against." Later on, Brett Ridgeman — who lives in a "bad" neighborhood — even says "you realize, I by no means idea I used to be a racist earlier than dwelling in this area.”

Intolerant lack of expertise and right-wing victimhood radiate from the two detectives — are those the males audience are meant to root for?

Known for specifically violent movies like 2015's Bone Tomahawk and 2017's Brawl in Cell Block 99, S. Craig Zahler is neatly aware of the controversial portraits his movies paint. “There’s stuff that can cause positive folks, and that’s positive; these are the pieces I need to make,” he told Yahoo Movies U.K. Yes, stereotypical depictions of folks of colour and "Blue Lives Matter" bait may also be jarring if now not triggering.

He is aware of other people's private views don't at all times align with the (incessantly conservative) perspectives portrayed in his motion pictures, and admittedly, he does not care.

“If you come back into a film and also you’re very centered on one thing — such as you’re very interested in how other people of this ethnicity or people with this trust device or girls or kids or other people from Canada are treated in this film… that’s your point of view,” he shared with The Ringer.

“If the maximum important thing so that you can get out of the movie experience is to see a mirrored image of your individual beliefs, you most likely received’t get that with any of my motion pictures because they don’t even constantly line up with themselves," the director continued.

The Daily Beast's review dubbed Dragged Across Concrete a “vile, racist right-wing fantasy.” Vulture detailed that it's "skewed in order that its heroes’ ethical relativism is intended to be a sign of their manly integrity. A man’s gotta do what a person’s gotta do — alternatively shortsighted and racist and sadistic.” This was once after author David Edelstein called the neo-noir flick "your basic boneheaded, right-wing action movie."

Heck, the head of Cinestate (the film's production company), Dallas Sonnier, admits his conventional viewers "haven’t seen Lady Bird, and they certainly haven’t seen Call Me by Your Name" and that the corporate's motion pictures are "almost counterculture." He even relayed the intension of controversy.

With this in thoughts, Dragged Across Concrete was once by all appearances targeted at a right-leaning target audience, despite its director denying his films elevate a political message.

If you'll be able to abdomen 2 hours and 38 minutes of racial stereotypes (for context, Tory Kittles plays a Black ex-con whose mom is a heroin-addicted prostitute), surprising violence, and "woe is me" racist protagonists, Dragged Across Concrete is these days streaming on Netflix.

ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7pbXSramam6Ses7p6wqikaKhfmb%2Bis8aem2aZk6e8tL%2BMnKanm6KawaZ5wqilraqfq7Kzv9hmnLGonJa2r7HD