A tough-guy’s tough guy, S. Craig Zahler is working on a fairly unique if downbeat angle in American cinema; it’s hard to imagine he cares about test audiences or anything really, other than positioning himself at the modern day answer to Sam Fuller, Peckinpah or perhaps Edward Bunker, and that’s some kind of grit we could probably use right now.
The usually friendly Vince Vaughn puts aside his avuncular Fred Claus schtick to play Bradley Thomas, an uber-tough guy who gets sent to jail when a crystal meth job goes wrong and a cop is killed. Eight years in the slammer might sound bad enough, but a mysterious henchman (Udo Kier, who else?) gives Thomas an even darker goal; his son will be mutilated unless Thomas infiltrates the highest security area of the jail and kills a target on his instructions.
Thomas is transferred to the deadly Redleaf Facility, where beyond super-tough Warden Tuggs (Don Johnson) is the main obstacle to his getting out alive. As you might expect from the director of Bone Tomahawk and Dragged Across Concrete, Thomas’s journey turns out to be a hellish journey through the uncharted depths of the US penal system, and the grim forebodings of the early stages prove to be well founded.
Brawl in Cell Block 99 is a brutal, uncompromising thriller that’s long and languid at times, but is compelling to watch as it drills down on Thomas’s bloody suicide mission. Vaughn has never been better than he is here, world-weary, but protective of his family, and fully aware that he’s on a one way ticket to hell and back with a cost that’s hard to contemplate in personal terms.
This is the kind of ferocity cinema I got out of my system before I became a dad 🙂 A guilty pleasure viewing for sure!
Glad you got it out of your system; you really don’t want to be enrolling a child in a kindergarten with life lessons or advice based on this movie!
Definitely not 🙂 Gosh, when is S. Craig Zahler going to make his next movie? I’ve enjoyed all 3 of his films. He’s got a knack for noirish glib you don’t see anywhere else…
Must be one of the most out of sync characters in today’s cinema. I’d like to seat him next to Wes Anderson at a dinner and see if they get along.
Love it.
Vince Vaughn? That’s a turnaround. Mr Smiley forced to dump the good guy look and get down with the bad guys. The idea just reeks of evil. Sounds a great watch.
Oh, I’d assumed a tough guy like you would have been all over this. It’s one of the most shocking descents into brutality to date, get your popcorn salted and get ready for a rough night in the slammer.
Not seen it but will check it out. We’re not so hard up for bad gys but VV would make a good addiiton.
He seems to be not in prison a lot in the trailer, and why is he beating up a car?
It’s his wife’s car and he found out she’d been cheating on him.
Ah ok. That’s stupid. I’ll give this a nope.
Don’t think you’d like it, unless you really want to see people getting the crap beaten out of them. But it is well done if you’re into that sort of thing.
I do in a John Wick /Tyler Rake/ Frank Martin kind of way. This doesn’t sound like those.
John Wick is awesome. It’s too bad they never made any more movies after the first one though…
Hahaha silly! 🤣
I have corrected him.
Oh dear.
Still not seen 4?
Not yet.
And probably won’t for quite a while. I just don’t care enough at this point. Same for the Flash…
It’ll take you a while to get through Sunday Bloody Sunday first.
That’s going to be a 3 month project all by itself!
I’m here when you are ready to share your opinion.
Don’t hold your breath…
Sorry, John Wick Forever After…
Only if he gets to marry the bartender girl from the first movie.
What would you say if I suggested getting Dragged Across Concrete?
Is that a movie or a metaphor for life?
Both.
Then I would say ‘not today thank you.’
Mel Gibson heist movie.
any good?
Yes. Long, but engrossing grown up film.
Ok will keep an eye out for it.
Hard to lure people to the cinema to see what they can easily see at home.
Is the correct answer.
Has to be one of the most brutal final kills (of the bad guy) ever.
Agreed, but the whole film is a skull-f***er.
In his movies as in his novels, Zahler makes me spit my teeth. And that’s so good. Bunker and Peckinpah (Walter Hill as well) are not very far, as you said.
Hill is a good shout. Zahler is out of fashion, but who cares? We all need a shot of what he’s got.
So true. He has something Hollywood has lost nowadays.
There was a VERY easy solution to all of this. If he had just played Monopoly, he could have gotten one of those “get out of jail free” cards and voila, no need to wait 8 years. I guess film makers really ARE out of touch with reality…
That Monopoly scene was cut from the Final Cut.
I wonder if it will get restored in the 5hr long extra super directors cut?
I have the original 14 hour super cut on laserdisc.
How many laserdiscs? 12 or 15?
Dual layered format, so just six.