Directed by:
S. Craig ZahlerScreenplay:
S. Craig ZahlerCinematography:
Benji BakshiCast:
Vince Vaughn, Jennifer Carpenter, Don Johnson, Udo Kier, Geno Segers, Dion Mucciacito, Fred Melamed, Rob Morgan, Tom Guiry, Marc Blucas, Dan Amboyer, Pooja Kumar (more)Plots(1)
When former boxer (Vince Vaughn) loses his job and is faced with the breakdown of his marriage, he decides to take a job as a drug courier to turn his fortunes around and provide a comfortable life for his wife Lauren (Jennifer Carpenter). Just as his situation begins to improve, a savage gunfight lands Bradley in jail where he has to make a series of impossible, chilling decisions to protect those he holds dear. Backed into a corner, Bradley now finds himself forced to commit ever more ferocious acts of violence across a vicious prison battleground on the path to the most dangerous confinement of all - Cell Block 99. (Universal Pictures UK)
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Reviews (16)
Brawl in Cell Block 99 offers up a new definition of brutality in the field of cinema that affects and changes pop culture trends. It is an alternative form of superhero worlds with a guy who became an alpha avenger against his will, escalating with increasing violence and progressing into an almost surrealist depiction of contemporary prison environments. There is still some sense of social apathy (I refer to Bone Tomahawk), but this time there is a good intention behind all that straightforward brutality. An intention to protect. It’s like the darkest side of the poetic Drive but ten times more intense; two hours of rushing headlong into the deepest pits of hell. Vince Vaughn stars in the role of his life, for which he should be damn grateful to the director Zahler. But it is too minimalist to get an Oscar. Don Johnson might get a nomination for savoring a delicious comeback in his role of a sadistic warden, though. The climax put me into the same euphoric state of watching Pulp Fiction for the first time. Brawl is the film of the year, at least for all Tarantino lovers and fans of original visions of the underworld and crime. [Sitges FF]
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Fucking awesome!! S. Craig Zahler didn't impress me much with his debut Bone Tomahawk, he did revive the dead western genre into horror with two solid gore scenes, but boredom was inevitable for me. His second effort, however, is thankfully different stuff! It stars Vince Vaughn, an actor mostly known as a B-movie comedian, but here he is transformed into an uncompromising badass that no one can beat both physically and mentally, and he delivers his strongest and best acting performance of his career! The first quarter of the film is rather tepid, but upon entering the prison, a very macho and tough guy ride begins, where the authenticity and realness literally gives you chills. For me, Red Leaf was quite possibly the toughest prison I've ever seen on film and the head warden played the heartless and unpleasant asshole with absolute grace. The very rough Zahler shoots the fights without a single cut and there is no shortage of broken arms, legs, spines and crushed skulls!!! The gore is shot very differently than in other films, so the question is who comes closer to reality? A very uncompromising, vicious, bleak, cold, intelligently written and brilliantly directed prison flick, the kind we haven’t seen for the last 20 years. It will definitely be fighting for the top spot this year. 95%
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The content of the film looks so bland, uninteresting, videotape-like... but the name of the director and screenwriter practically guarantees that it won't be a bland, uninteresting, videotape spectacle. And it's not. It's a powerful, dark, and very brutal story about a man determined to take justice into his own shackled hands, and Vince Vaughn is absolutely brilliant in the lead role, largely because he's not just a muscular brawler, but also a good actor, BiCB99 impressed me so much. I had no problem understanding Vaughn's character, his motivations were clear and I really liked how he doesn't hesitate but takes action immediately, doing absolutely horrible things that made me have to look away more than once, but he does them because he doesn't have time to think of anything else and probably doesn't enjoy it much either. I would never have guessed the film was over two hours long.
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Zahler really is great at writing both screenplays and books. That's why it's unexpectedly strange that this time he's writing betrays him. While the first half (and especially the prologue) is slow but not too slow time to support the motivations and to trigger the rage thriving inside Bradley "Hulk" Thomas, the second will ruin everything as soon as the system is entered. The characters in it are flat and almost unintentionally ridiculous. There is lack of action (which is not wrong), but it´s sloppy slow (which is wrong), the plot is completely absent, the locations of prisons are convincing, probably in the same was as promises during the election campaign. Instead of a straightforward strike (benefiting from Bradley's consistently constructed motivation), the movie starts to rely on absurd slowness. However, not in terms of style, which would build the tension of silence before the storm or pay attention to the characters, but superfluous, because it should have ended by tens of minutes earlier in the editing room. And the more is Vaughn being respectful in his initial civilian "d'Onofrio's" position, the less he fits in the subsequent jailbird position of a puncher acting in appaling style of Michael "Bronson" Peterson. Just another average grindhouse that takes advantage of the fact that there has not been any serious one in a long time.
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A bit better compared to the directors debut. The uncompromising violence is now not an end in itself, but serves well in the compelling story of the anti-avenger played by Vince Vaughn, the protector of a family for whom the role is a solid fling, thankfully in a positive sense. As a prison drama, it's probably not entirely realistic, but as a bizarre probe into the world of violence, unspoken emotions and anger, it is very impressive. Lots of long shots full of despair and grief interspersed with moments of unreal carnage where broken arms and crushed skulls are the order of the day. Zahler delivers something that you don’t see often in the film world, but it's also far from being for everyone. Similarly innovative in the prison genre as the recent Shot Caller, only much slower and rougher.
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