Brawl In Cell Block 99 Review
Filmmaker S. Craig Zahler brought a blast of offbeat creativity to the Western genre two years ago with his freak-out Bone Tomahawk. And he's back now to reinvent the prison movie with this highly stylised, powerfully violent dramatic thriller. It takes the tone of a 1970s exploitation movie, digging into the more emotional sides of the story as the grisliness escalates. And it also gives Vince Vaughn a character unlike anyone he's ever played: beefy, unstoppable and intriguingly sensitive.
He stars as recovering alcoholic Bradley, who lives in upstate New York with his wife Lauren (Jennifer Carpenter). He has just discovered that she's had an affair, so he takes out his rage on her car before stopping for a reasonable discussion about putting their marriage back together. The problem seems to be connected to their lack of money, so he approaches his old friend Gil (Marc Blucas) about taking a job as a drug runner. And the larger cashflow indeed improves their relationship until Bradley is arrested following a massive shootout with the cops. In prison, a mystery man (Udo Kier) tells Bradley that the now-pregnant Lauren will be killed unless he murders someone in the notorious high-security wing at Redleaf Penitentiary, a fortress run by the sadistic warden Tuggs (Don Johnson).
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