'Dragged Across Concrete' Trailer: Mel Gibson And Vince Vaughn Play Crooked Cops For 'Bone Tomahawk' Director

Director S. Craig Zahler revels in telling nasty, brutal stories. He burst on the scene with the ultra-violent western Bone Tomahawk and followed that up with Brawl in Cell Block 99, a deeply unpleasant, unabashedly gory prison movie two years later. Now he's back with Dragged Across Concrete, a movie whose title may telegraph what the audience could feel like after watching it.

Mel Gibson and Vince Vaughn play cops who get caught in a video of police brutality and subsequently plunge into the criminal underworld. Sound skuzzy enough for you?

Zahler lives for skuzz. I've read two of his novels – Wraiths of the Broken Land and Mean Business on North Ganson Street, both of which were at one point in development as movies – and they each contain profoundly disturbing scenes of intense violence. And that's not even mentioning his movies – one of which, by the way, has already depicted a man having his face literally dragged across concrete and scraped off. It's arguably one of the most savage moments in film history.

On one hand, I'm repulsed by the idea of this movie. Gibson's appearance alone makes me want to skip it. And Gibson pairing up with this director for this story – one that appears to be about a pair of white cops who are "cancelled" and then take things into their own hands because they feel like they're owed something by society – also doesn't exactly sound like a grand old time at the movies. But on the other hand, part of me is curious about how much farther Zahler will try to push the envelope, and if he has any larger point to make here. We'll find out in about a month.

The film features much of the same cast as Brawl in Cell Block 99 – Vaughn, Jennifer Carpenter, Don Johnson, and Udo Kier – while also adding Gibson, Michael Jai White, and Tory Kittles.

Here's the official description:

DRAGGED ACROSS CONCRETE follows two police detectives who find themselves suspended when a video of their strong-arm tactics is leaked to the media. With little money and no options, the embittered policemen descend into the criminal underworld and find more than they wanted waiting in the shadows.

Dragged Across Concrete arrives in theaters and VOD on March 22, 2019.