Home Viewing Review: Brawl In Cell Block 99

Brawl In Cell Block 99

(2017. Director: S. Craig Zahler Starring: Vince Vaughn, Jennifer Carpenter, Don Johnson, Udo Kier)

SYNOPSIS:

After losing his job and finding his marriage in trouble, Bradley Thomas (Vince Vaughn) decides that the only way to solve his issues is by becoming a drug courier for a criminal friend. However, soon events get beyond his control, eventually leading to that final, horrifying battle in the hellish Cell Block 99.

Vince Vaughn is a big guy. At 6 foot 5 inches no other regular lead actor, apart from horror legend Christopher Lee and action behemoth Dwayne Johnson, has had such an imposing frame. It's strange then that for the majority of his career he has sought to downplay his physical presence, instead choosing to play unassuming everymen in a long series of increasingly mediocre comedies. However Vaughn, much like Matthew McConaughey before him (similarly after a stint on the TV show True Detective), has decided to reinvent his reputation from disappointing humorist to the star of films full of darkness and grit.

Writer-director S. Craig Zahler's sophomore release Brawl In Cell Block 99 has no lack of either. The film begins with Bradley (Vaughn), a former boxer turned mechanic, having a particularly terrible day. He not only gets fired from his job but comes home to discover that his wife, Lauren (Jennifer Carpenter), has been cheating on him. (Seriously, how often does this happen in films? Is one humiliation at a time never enough?) However, the expected violent screaming match which usually follows never arrives. Instead, although we can see the barely contained rage coursing through the sinews of Bradley's wide shoulders, he controls himself and sits down to have a serious conversation about where their marriage went wrong and how to fix it. These early scenes quickly send a message that although this film has the premise and title of a trashy grindhouse movie, Zahler is not going to necessarily play by the simplistic rules expected in the genre. Bradley may be a hulking mass of anger and power but he is also a reasonable man who prefers to resolve his problems with empathy and intelligence unlike the hate-driven psychopaths we're often asked to cheer on in this kind of material. (In fact, he is also fairly considerate to the boss who fired him, clearly understanding that his real enemy is a stalling economy which has forced cuts on small businesses.) That said, he does tear chunks out of Lauren's car with his bare hands in a seething fury during this scene but he is at least sensible enough to wait until she is safely in the house before doing so. Although this moment clearly displays the coiled physical strength of our protagonist, the camera does linger on the lack of serious damage done to the vehicle to highlight the utterly impotent pointlessness of this explosive tantrum. Also of note is the moment when Bradley punches his fist through the car's side window. It takes him three attempts before it finally cracks, and when it does it cuts his fist to ribbons with the shattered glass. This subtle detail grounds the violence in the film in a way that gives it physical weight and feels like it has real, painful consequences. This implication makes it all the more shocking later in film when the gruesomeness of the brutality on screen becomes almost cartoonish.

In many ways watching Brawl In Cell Block 99 feels like a slow descent into Hades. Much like last year's John Wick: Chapter 2, it follows a man who merely desires a quiet life being drawn deeper into Dante-esque circles of a criminal underworld in an attempt to fight his way to freedom. However where that film became increasingly operatic and hyper-stylised as it went on (with the increasing death count becoming more meaningless and romanticised), Brawl In Cell Block 99 only gets grittier, nastier and more claustrophobic until it reaches it's nightmarish, grisly climax. This is reflected in the film's visual palette. The early scenes are slightly desaturated but mostly appear like a slightly more washed out version of the real world. However, each time Bradley moves further from the surface view of normal society and deeper into the heartless criminal underbelly of America, the world around him gets visibly darker and less colourful. This happens first as he begins to work for his drug dealing friend and again as he takes on a job involving an untrustworthy cartel. It continues through his imprisonment and then transfer. By the time we reach the titular Cell Block 99 the movie looks less like it's being projected through celluloid than carved onto rough piece of sandpaper.

This is also representative of the way the film plays with our expectations. At the beginning, Brawl In Cell Block 99 feels almost like a kitchen sink drama about working class struggle. The transition into more lurid material happens at a measured but steady pace. By the time kitsch legends Don Johnson and Udo Kier appear as suitably ridiculously villainous caricatures, it feels a perfectly natural progression from where we started. From there it seems almost inevitable that the film will eventually result in the kind of savage beatdowns that would give even the producers of Game of Thrones pause.

This infernal journey is not the only religious symbolism on show. The very first thing seen on screen is the massive crucifix tattoo displayed on the back of Bradley's head, giving him the seeming ability to glare at you aggressively even while facing away. Although Bradley is put through various trials and tortures throughout the film, the only injuries he sustains for the majority of the runtime are some barely explained bleeding wounds on his hands and feet which can't help but resemble some sort of stigmata.

Sacrifice is a common theme throughout and the film could be taken as a blunt, ugly display of the pains that an honest man must endure to support his family in a world where morality and fairness have died. So far this all sounds like the typically conservative worldview common in such low budget genre fare, filled with macho heroics and vigilante justice. and there are such trappings throughout the film. Bradley is a flag waving patriot and is defined by his love for his family (hell, one of the films villains is an abortionist for Christ's sake!) However, these kinds of tropes are also often subverted subtly throughout the film. This makes it hard to tell how much of this is genuine sentiment and how much is simply Zahler riffing on our expectations of the genre. Bradley and Lauren and their unborn child may seem like symbols of the traditional American nuclear family, but they are both former addicts and criminals, which hints towards the idea that their desire for a life of quiet restraint is more the product of the Twelve Step program than any deeply held moral convictions. Bradley's main antagonists may be an ambiguously Latin American gang but he has a similar fear and anger towards the films representatives of law and order, who are shown as gratuitously sadistic, corrupt and incompetent. The film may gain some grimy thrills from Warden Tuggs' (Don Johnson) cruel and unusual castigations, but seeing them targeted at our kindhearted lead can't help but reveal the fruitless barbarity of torture and corporal punishment.

Bradley eventually becomes as barbarous himself; adapting to his hopeless situation, he fights back with everything he has. The film's final act is a no-holds barred battery of snapped limbs and crushed skulls, ratcheting up in intensity until you can't help but laugh, squeal or cover your eyes at the sheer audacity of the ghastly savagery on show.

Brawl In Cell Block 99 is certainly not to everyone's taste. It's bleakness and ferocious finale will be too much for most mainstream audience members to handle, but equally it's sparse narrative and delayed gratification will be a little too artful for gore-hounds merely seeking their next quick fix of repulsiveness. However, it is a smart, witty and confident experiment in building tension and features a genuinely powerful performance from Vaughn at its centre. If you enjoy a solid, well crafted potboiler and, especially, if you're the type of person who gets excited at the idea of seeing a vicious goon's head ground into concrete until their face is torn right off, then you're not going to find a more satisfying slab of grim entertainment than Brawl In Cell Block 99.

Review by The Mogul.