Movie Review: Brawl in Cell Block 99

Brawl in Cell Block 99 **** / *****

Directed by: S. Craig Zahler.

Written by: S. Craig Zahler.

Starring: Vince Vaughn (Bradley Thomas), Jennifer Carpenter (Lauren Thomas), Don Johnson (Warden Tuggs), Udo Kier (Placid Man), Marc Blucas (Gil), Tom Guiry (Wilson), Dan Amboyer (Longman), Fred Melamed (Mr. Irving), Rob Morgan (Jeremy).

 

I am as guilty as anyone of sometimes saying – especially of genre films – that the films would be better if they were tighter – mainly meaning, they’d be better if they were shorter. For the most part, I still think I’m right – and that’s mainly because the list of genre films that can sustain its momentum for more than about 100 minutes is short. Most of these film would benefit from being a tight, nasty 90 minutes. Films like Brawl in Cell Block 99 is the exception that proves the rule. Here is a film than runs two hours and twelve minutes – and it takes an hour before the main character is even in jail and another 45 minutes or so before he arrives in Cell Block 99 – he first has to get transferred to a different jail, and then get himself transferred into the title cell block. Oh, there is a brawl in Cell Block 99 alright – and it’s bloody and brutal when it comes. But the film takes its time getting there – and I pretty much loved every minute it takes to do so.

 

The film casts Vince Vaughn as Bradley Thomas – a large, hulking man who is mostly quiet throughout the film, which suits the usually motor mouthed Vaughn quite well. He’s a large man, with a shaved head, with a cross tattooed on the back of it. In the film’s opening scene, he gets fired from his tow truck driving job, and then heads home to have his wife, Lauren (Jennifer Carpenter) tell him she’s having an affair. He doesn’t take the news well – and yet, surprisingly, after his initial meltdown, the couple actually manage a mature (kind of) dialogue about their relationship – and decide to try and make a go of it. Bradley goes to an old acquaintance of his and gets a job “transporting packages” – although we all know what that means. Soon, he’s working with the cartels, and things go from bad to worse as he gets arrested, etc.

 

Brawl in Cell Block 99 is a throwback to the films of the 1970s – the tough guy movies that were written and directed by the likes of Don Siegel or John Milius. It’s easy to dismiss those films as “problematic” – as it would be to do the same thing to this film – it’s perhaps not surprising that as violent as this film is, it is also far more right wing in its outlook than most films. The film wouldn’t really look out of place on a double bill like Dirty Harry – as both films have violent men at their core that you like at as heroic, until you actually stop and think about their actions for more than a minute. I don’t know that Bradley is racist – he beats up members of pretty much every race imaginable, but he has a primitive view of his relationship with his wife to be sure. If you were to argue that the film is about a violent, racist, misogynistic psychopath, I’m not sure I could disagree with you.

 

Yet the film really does give you the same giddy, transgressive thrill of those movies. It was written and directed S. Craig Zahler, who made the horror/Western Bone Tomahawk a couple years back, and learned some lessons from it. Both films are slow burns, gradually leading up to scenes that are absolutely shocking in their level of brutality and bloodshed. He does a far better job this time around though in keeping things interesting leading up to that shocking climax.

 

There will be those who think Brawl in Cell Block 99 is a masterpiece – that will think this is the best film they’ve seen this year, and watch it approximately a million times. There will be those who are offended by the movie, and shut it off fairly early in the film, and never look back. If you’ve made it this far into the review, I suspect you know which one you are.