I recommend Bone Tomahawk to everybody. The dialogue is fantastic, the acting, cinematography, it's one of the best films of the past decade. So I've always kept an eye out for any future Zahler works, particularly when he writes and directs. Then I saw Brawl in Cell Block 99. I found the 1st two-thirds of it vapid, lifeless with its sterile visuals and horrifically paced. The dialogue was the worst thing; it was so stilted, as if he'd forgotten how real people talk to each other, like what Mark Zuckerberg must imagine humans sound like. Distractingly abstract. I will say that the last third was increasingly interesting, and if the rest was of that calibre, it would've been an impressive movie, but shoulda, woulda, coulda. Still, batting .500 isn't bad and justified further interest in the guy.
But I've just finished his last effort, Dragged Across Concrete, which has me questioning Zahler entirely. The horrendous dialogue returned; he doesn't know how people speak. Really bizarre. The bland colours returned to add to the bland dialogue, although they did improve after the first hour to look more normal. The first hour too wasn't paced as badly as 99 but it wasn't paced well. The second half was better but never all that riveting for me, including some silly moments like the protagonist having a heart to heart in the middle of a gunfight, not even looking at the bad guys, who conveniently stayed put and waited for the monologues to finish. Then there's the other character, Muscles, whose every word is unbelievably pretentious, yet dumbed down enough to come across as 'hood'. I did like the brief work that Jennifer Carpenter had, as the most ordinary, believable dialogue out of the entire film. Then her hands and head exploded from bullets that otherwise were little pops when shot at anyone else, so not only was it overly violent, it was inconsistent. It would've been better if she was the character in the van during the third act and given more work to do, adding to the tension. The other woman that they choose also had a child, who was threatened, so there's no reason why it couldn't have been Carpenter, when we actually had a connection to her.
Zahler's Bone Tomahawk reminds me of what Chronicle was for Max Landis; a level that wasn't reached again. Moments, scenes that are reminiscent yet never a complete, satisfying experience. I hope that he shuts me up in the future and returns to past form. Or at least works with someone who can point out bad dialogue if he can't see it.
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source https://www.reddit.com/r/movies/comments/uyeprx/s_craig_zahler_a_genuine_talent_or_a_fluke/
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