"Brawl in Cell Block 99" - review

A gore-splattered grindhouse flick with heart

Movie fans are probably most familiar with writer-director S. Craig Zahler's bleak Western "Bone Tomahawk", starring Kurt Russell and Richard Jenkins.  However, Zahler's follow-up film, "Brawl in Cell Block 99" starring Vince Vaughn and Don Johnson, is very similar in its focus on tersely written character drama interspersed between scenes of increasingly volcanic violence.  Zahler loves pulp films, both in style and in bodily destruction, but thankfully he is able to balance the aortic explosions with sincere, intimate exposition that gives the grisly proceedings meaning beyond mercilessness.

Vince Vaughn is Bradley Thomas, a former drug mule struggling to live a clean life.  Recently fired from his auto body job, Bradley regretfully returns to running meth in order for him and his newly pregnant wife to have a chance at being a happy family.  However, Bradley is gifted and/or cursed with a functioning conscience and when a delivery goes bad, he stays instead of running.  Bradley shoots some of his cohorts to prevent local cops from being murdered, but Bradley's criminal history overshadows this one selfless act, and he is sentenced to seven years in prison.

Bradley's wife is kidnapped, and their unborn child is threatened with prenatal dismemberment unless Bradley kills a man in another prison.  The slow and inexorable descent into brutality upon brutality reaches nearly nonsensical heights as getting to that man requires Bradley to leave a trail of broken bones and crippled guards behind him.  This is NOT a film for the squeamish, but the increasing chiaroscuro style of the cinematography makes Bradley's persistent plunge into amoral oblivion take on a painterly elegance and composition.  Filth and darkness has rarely looked so repulsively and yet classically gorgeous.

Vince Vaughn's performance is restrained and quite credible.  There's nary a flash of the witty, quip-laden and fast talking character he is wont to play.  Vaughn also does most of the stunt work, and that combined with his imposing height and the long takes makes the fight scenes as impactful upon the mind as they are on the bodies.  The effects are all practical as well, which lends another level of veracity and ferocity to the melee.  There is one shot at the very end that while brief, does not work well, but overall if you're in the mood for a "Sin City"-styled fight to the death, "Brawl in Cell Block 99" will definitely get your blood pumping.  Just try to keep it inside your body!