Review of Brawl in Cell Block 99 (2017) by Katie V — 01 Jan 2018

***.

Vince Vaughn gives a great performance in 'Brawl in Cell Block 99'; one of the most brutal and disturbing movies I've ever seen. The first two thirds are relatively quiet, and the film has a great sense of realism with the prison scenes, making you feel as though you're there too. Writer/Director S. Craig Zahler certainly doesn't hold back, and this can be to the films advantage as well as its disadvantage. Whilst it has a protagonist that you can't help but root for, and plenty of set up is provided to make you more invested later on, the movie sometimes - especially towards the end - veers off into uncomfortable scenes of violence and depravation that undermines some of the hard work done before it. This is of course on purpose but, for me personally, it began to enter territory I wasn't comfortable with. Ultimately, this movie is exactly what it wanted to be - a grind house genre piece. I really liked a number of aspects of it, particularly its pacing and attention to detail, but others undeniably bothered me.