The shocking ending to Dragged Across Concrete has some deeper meanings to unpack. Written and directed S. Craig Zahler, the film stars Mel Gibson and Vince Vaughn as Detectives Brett Ridgeman and Anthony Lurasetti, who are suspended without pay following a widely reported incident of police brutality. To score some quick cash, they tail a band of bank robbers to a garage, where they engage in a blood-drenched armed showdown that ends with most of the characters dying horrifically. Dragged Across Concrete is a gruesome, action-packed take on The Treasure of the Sierra Madre’s themes of greed, desperation, and the corrupting power of money.
After the grisly thrills of Bone Tomahawk and Brawl in Cell Block 99, audiences expected haunting scenes of graphic violence from Zahler – and he delivered plenty in the controversial Dragged Across Concrete. Every character is grimly punished by the end of the 2018 movie, whether they're despicable antiheroes who get a taste of their own medicine or innocent supporting players who don’t deserve any of it. The Dragged Across Concrete ending is satisfying for some characters and subversively short-changes others as the detectives, the bank robbers, and the getaway drivers all try to escape with the loot.
What Happens In Dragged Across Concrete's Ending
Dragged Across Concrete revolves around two very different characters with the exact same goal: to give their families a better life. Detective Ridgeman wants to steal the gold from the bank heist so that he can move his family to a safer neighborhood where his daughter won’t be constantly harassed. Henry Johns, one of the two getaway drivers hired by the bank robbers, needs the gold for the same reason as Ridgeman: to get his family out of danger. He returns home from prison to find that his mother has turned to sex work to provide for herself and Henry’s younger brother, Ethan.
When the suspended cops follow the van full of stolen gold to a garage in the countryside, all parties engage in an intense standoff. Almost everyone involved in the shootout ends up dead – Detective Lurasetti, professional thief Lorentz Vogelmann, his henchmen Black Gloves and Grey Gloves, and their hostage Cheryl – with only Ridgeman and Henry left standing. The two agree to split the loot between them, but they each reveal a hidden firearm, and Henry fatally wounds Ridgeman. The final scene, set 11 months later, shows that Henry has moved Ethan and his mom into a luxurious mansion and sent a share of the gold to Ridgeman’s family.
What Was The Point Of Showing Kelly's Morning?
Dragged Across Concrete follows the perspectives of a few different characters in its sprawling ensemble. It shows Ridgeman and Lurasetti dealing with the fallout of their brutality, Henry desperately trying to make ends meet, and Vogelmann and his team preparing for the heist. But the biggest detour in the movie is when it shows bank employee Kelly Summers’s whole morning as she gets ready at home and goes to work. There’s no particular reason plot-wise to spend so much time with Kelly before what turns out to be one of the heist movie genre's most dangerous jobs, but there is a crucial emotional reason.
The day of the bank heist happens to be Kelly’s first day back at work at the end of her maternity leave. When she’s introduced at home, she’s reluctant to leave her baby for a few hours, and her partner locks her out to force her to go to work. Going to work at all is a tragedy for Kelly because she wants to stay at home with her child – but it turns much more tragic when armed robbers show up. Dragged Across Concrete shows Kelly’s whole morning so that the audience cares deeply about her by the time she’s senselessly executed by the robbers, making her death more horrifying.
Why Didn't Henry Tell The Bank Robbers They Were Being Followed By Cops?
When Henry is driving the bank robbers’ van out to their remote garage, he notices that Ridgeman and Lurasetti are tailing them. But he keeps this information to himself and doesn’t tell Vogelmann or his cronies. Henry doesn’t explicitly tell anyone why he kept the presence of the cops a secret, but it’s not difficult to decipher. After seeing the robbers’ ruthless, cold-hearted treatment of their hostages, Henry quickly became disturbed by their capacity for violence. He kept the detectives’ presence to himself out of fear that either he or the detectives would be killed.
Why Did Cheryl Kill Lurasetti?
Cheryl is the bank employee that the robbers take hostage. During the standoff with Ridgeman and Lurasetti, Cheryl is sent to collect the body of Biscuit, Henry’s fellow getaway driver. When it seems like Cheryl is escaping from the van, Lurasetti goes over to help her. Cheryl gets spooked and fatally shoots Lurasetti, after which Ridgeman instinctively shoots her. Cheryl shot Lurasetti in confusion as the bank robbers’ torment had her on edge, and she didn’t realize he was a cop trying to help her. This is one of a few examples of Dragged Across Concrete using morbid irony to highlight the inescapable, cyclical nature of violence.
Will Henry Release The Video?
During Henry's climactic negotiation with the surviving detective, he reveals that he caught Ridgeman and Lurasetti breaking the law on video. He threatens to release the video if Ridgeman turns on him. The movie doesn’t reveal if Henry released the video of Ridgeman and Lurasetti getting their hands dirty in the aftermath of the heist, but it seems unlikely. Henry came out on top with all the gold and no lingering loose ends, so he had no reason to release the video. He only needed the video as leverage to blackmail Ridgeman, and if he did release it, he would implicate himself and needlessly besmirch Ridgeman’s family’s name.
The fact that Henry honored his other promise to a dying Ridgeman is a sign that he probably kept the incriminating video under wraps. Henry could’ve just made off with the whole loot, but he kept his promise to give some of the gold to Ridgeman’s family. Henry is one of the most moral characters in Dragged Across Concrete — a film filled to the brim with amoral characters. He keeps his word to Ridgeman and helps out his family because it’s the right thing to do. Deleting the video that would posthumously incriminate Ridgeman and Lurasetti is also the right thing to do, so that's probably what Henry did.
What Does Henry's Final Line Mean?
In the final scene at the end of Dragged Across Concrete, when Henry is shown living in a lavish mansion with his family, he sits down with his brother to play a hunting video game called Shotgun Safari. Before they play the game, Henry utters the last line of the film: “Let’s hunt some lions.” This isn’t just a reference to the gameplay; it seems to suggest what lies ahead for Henry. The most logical move for Henry would be to retire with the gold, lie low, and manage his illicit finances. But his assertion about hunting lions suggests he’s not done with the criminal underworld and will seek more power and fortune in the future.
The Real Meaning Of Dragged Across Concrete's Ending
The message of the Dragged Across Concrete ending is the same bleak theme carried by most classic film noir movies: the world is unfair, and justice isn’t always served. Lurasetti is killed by accident despite his efforts to be a good cop. Ridgeman’s family anonymously receives some gold in the mail to help with their financial situation, but they’re still bereaved with no closure about what happened to their beloved patriarch. The Dragged Across Concrete ending subverts the notion that crime doesn’t pay, because Henry gets rich from the spoils of a deadly crime. Yet he earns the victory because he’s much more principled than the characters who ended up dead.