60
This film barely gets a recommendation only because it finally gets interesting at the end.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
60
Zahler has a way with action, and the set pieces are inventive and nasty, with an unflinching eye for violence. Such style and confidence is impressive. But after three movies, his increasingly morose characters’ world-weariness is becoming wearying in itself; a little more light and shade here and there would easily take this cult director to the next level. That is, if he wants to go.
50
The Hollywood Reporter by David Rooney
The insanely self-indulgent running time of two hours and 40 minutes and the tendency to undercut tension with fussy dialogue that continually draws attention to its cleverness make Zahler’s third feature a lot less fun than it seems to think it is.
60
Screen International by Demetrios Matheou
Anyone expecting a progression in Zahler’s work may be disappointed, as the amusingly mannered dialogue starts to feel self-conscious and forced, as does the fatalism.
70
At a whopping 158 minutes, “Concrete’s” sleek, languorous anatomy of a heist represents the filmmaker’s most extreme exercise yet in painstaking genre deceleration, sparked as ever by the tangy movie-movie vernacular of his writing, the crunchy metal-on-asphalt dynamism of his craftsmanship, and the back-from-the-brink reanimation of his stars.
40
The trademark brutal violence remains effective, and Zahler maintains a pervasive feeling of dread throughout his films, but Dragged Across Concrete shows the limits of taking the game long.
67
The Film Stage by Leonardo Goi
Where the new entry lacks in bloodshed and bone-splintering violence, it still confirms Zahler’s penchant for complicated characters, and conjures up a bad cops action movie which, despite blips in tension and a second half far superior to the first, crystallizes Zahler’s as a key name to watch for lovers of the genre.
83
Dragged Across Concrete may be a hard movie to love, but it’s a much harder one not to respect and even admire.
60
The Telegraph by Robbie Collin
Even when the heist gets underway, the film takes its time about everything: what Zahler has essentially done is put a 15-minute mid-blockbuster set-piece on the rack and stretched it out until its cartilage pops. The duration is part of the point – you can’t do gnawing fatalism in a hurry – but the repetitions and languors here can feel presumptuous.