Review of Brawl in Cell Block 99 (2017) by Timone — 27 Apr 2019

I don't think people have heard of this film but I can recommend it if I can watch it first or tell them that I've been watching it along with the other films. Brawl in Cell Block 99 had it's reputation for making the violence look gratuitous in the sense that it is brutal. I think that it's directed by S. Craig Zahler and much like Quentin Tarantino, I think he's now known for making the violence look so real that the audience would react to it and get shocked by them in his films.

A retired boxer named Bradley Thomas played by Vince Vaughn loses his job as an auto mechanic, and his troubled marriage is about to expire. At this crossroads in his life, he feels that he has no better option than to work for an old buddy as a drug courier. This improves his situation until the terrible day that he finds himself in a gunfight between a group of police officers and his own ruthless allies.

Now I'll get to something that really shocked me the first time I've watched this movie and that is the violence. Now I know that it's intense but it is brutal in many levels every time Vince Vaughn is starting to fight in the most gratuitous way. The one scene after an hour is that caught my reaction is where he broke the guard's arm giving him a fracture and I thought I got over the broken bones. But hey, I did. There are many disturbing fights that he's done is so gruesome and gritty, it makes me and you want to cringe. I know what you're thinking: "Why did you watch it?" Well, because I'm interested. But watching it again I got over the grittiness and gruesomeness and I think this is quite a good film. Now for the director S. Craig Zahler, he's the director who directed Bone Tomahawk starring Kurt Russell and the recent Dragged Across Concrete starring Mel Gibson and the same cast who starred in Brawl in Cell Block 99. The only film I'm interested in watching is Dragged Across Concrete because it stars my favourite actor, Mel Gibson and I heard that it's going to be violent just like Brawl in Cell Block 99 so I hope I'll get around to watching it, but as is, that is it. If you're interested in watching Brawl in Cell Block 99 just like I did, I hope you'll be able to like it just like I already did.