DRAGGED ACROSS CONCRETE.

Cert 18 Running time 159mins ....

This is a hard-boiled and knowingly old-fashioned crime drama that revels in its street-smart banter and underlying sense of menace.

Evocatively titled Dragged Across Concrete proves itself here as a tough-guy B-movie brimming with leanand-mean performances and a gritty 1970s thriller style. Mel Gibson and Vince Vaughn are spot-on as a pair of tough cops who find themselves suspended without pay after an over-excessive spot of "interrogation". In need of a quick money fix, the pair plan to rob a drug dealer but stumble on a nasty bank robbery and feel it is their responsibility to track the brutal criminals to their hideout.

Dragged Across Concrete is something of an epic crime tale that is happy to take its time as it develops the characters and the harsh world they inhabit.

Despite its lengthy running time, the film is a tense and tightly oiled affair, with Gibson and Vaughn terrific as the tough guy cops at ease in their world of violence, sexism and casual racism, but also following their own off-kilter moral code.

CAPTION(S):

SUSPENDED Mel Gibson as an offbeat violent cop