Brawl in Cell Block 99

Just another, regular day. You come home from work early and you find out that some jerk is sleeping with your wife. But you don’t go and rip his head off. No, you deal with it like a man and you try to rebuild the relationship and life you had before. But that requires time and money, so you start smuggling drugs… Brawl in Cell Block 99 stands mainly on Vince Vaughn’s minimalist performance (you’ll forget he ever played in comedies) and Zahler’s uncompromising approach to violence. The screenplay about Mr. Thomas and his journey taking him from prison to prison is full of broken limbs, stinking toilets and torture of all kinds. Since Bone Tomahawk, Zahler has improved his dramaturgic approach and the story has a much more consistent feel about it. The fantastic atmosphere where some scenes will make you want to barf, but you can’t tear your eyes from the screen is very special. Original. (2018-03-30)

Arty grind-house that crushes skulls with its slow pace and human cruiser Vince Vaughn. Extremely precisely constructed tension and the director's brilliantly managed jump from a realistic introduction to a consistently B-movie finale in the environment of a cellar hell for invited psychopaths. Feat. Great cameos for frog eyes Udo Kier and the verbal frost of Frank Melamed. This is a portrait of a world that knows no mercy, with razor contours. Bradley Thomas is the hardest and coldest fucking bastard on the suffering market. North of OK, south of cancer. In my ideal world, people like S. Craig Zahler would win directing awards at big festivals. Because, for God's sake, this is an INNOVATIVE kick in the nuts, a director’s masterclass, whilst also being a genre film that had me invested since the first second. (2017-11-13)

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% (2017-10-16)

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. (2017-10-14)

A huge surprise for me personally. The director S. Craig Zahler has already proven to me with the movie Bone Tomahawk this year that he has some potential, but I really had no idea that Vince Vaughn would convince me after his bad performance in True Detective. A very decent revenge film, which takes place in numerous locations, but even though we see the prison most of the time, you can’t say it is a prison drama. On the contrary. Imagine a simple PC game with a clear target in the beginning and you go through the first, second, third, fourth level… to finally get to the final boss. This film is that simple. Simple, but harsh, uncompromising and mainly the quality is really good. You will realize that in the fighting scenes. And you will also realize that Vince has a gift which he has never shown in all of his comedies so far. Why? That’s a good question. Now I hope that he will have a chance to film better and more interesting films than those he’s done so far. (2017-12-21)