6/3/2023 0 Comments Dragged across concrete![]() After the offending incident during the arrest of a Mexican-American suspect, Ridgeman’s boss and former partner, Chief Lt. Meanwhile, Ridgeman has his own financial troubles not helped by six weeks’ suspension without pay. His low-level crim buddy Biscuit (Michael Jai White) wastes no time attempting to recruit Henry for a job he hesitates only until he learns that his junkie mother (Vanessa Bell Calloway) is six months behind in the rent, and turning tricks in the house she shares with Henry’s disabled kid brother (Myles Truitt). In fact, the movie opens on the smart young black dude fresh out of prison, engaging in some artfully lit humping with an old elementary-school crush (Vivian Ng). Seasoned detective Brett Ridgeman (Gibson) and his younger partner Tony Lurasetti (Vaughn) are the central characters, but the story is split between their perspective and that of Henry Johns (Tory Kittles). And the slow-burn approach that has worked so well for Zahler in the past misses the mark here because the new film appears to be simmering toward explosive violence that fails to pack much sustained punch when it finally does ignite. Even the constant jabs at political correctness, designed to neutralize charges of racism or sexism with a heavy-handed wink, grow tiresome fast. It’s a more familiar brand of crime yarn, capably plotted but weakened almost from the outset by its very studied deadpan humor and unjustified bloat, as if Zahler were working counterintuitively against the basic rules of action suspense. This latest effort from the novelist-turned-filmmaker is less distinctive than either of its predecessors. He continued last year with Brawl in Cell Block 99, a juicy slab of grindhouse exploitation meat that cast a menacing Vaughn as a human demolition machine in a jailhouse from hell. The writer-director’s first and best film, the 2015 cannibal Western Bone Tomahawk, signaled him as a bold talent with a knack for genre reinvention and a natural flair for drawing flavorful characterizations from his actors.
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