Brawl in Cell Block 99
Known for his comedic portrayals
of characters, actor Vince Vaughn takes on a more serious dramatic challenge as
a man named Bradley Thomas, a former boxer, now tow truck driver. Bradley sees himself
as a respectful normal hard working blue collar stiff just trying to make ends
meet providing for his home, his wife Lauren (Jennifer Carpenter aka for Showtime’s
“Dexter” Debra Morgan) and the child they are so desperate to have after several
miscarriages.
After getting laid off from
his job, he head directly home to discover that not only is he at a crossroads financially apparently his personal life is unraveling as well with his wife sitting in
her car in the driveway. She’s leaving him from feeling neglected and for the
fact she is involved with another man. After promising to his wife he will do
better, he goes back to an old friend for work. A job while more lucrative got him
hooked on drugs 14 years ago which was being a drug courier for a local king pin.
When the money starts to come
in, he also discovers the risks are increasing as well, including one night when he gets
involved a gunfight between police officers and Mexican drug dealers he thought
were allies. When the smoke clears, Bradley is badly hurt and thrown in to prison,
where his enemies force him to commit an act of violence that turns the entire place
into a savage battleground.
REVIEW: With
a running time of 2:12 minutes “Brawl in Cell Block 99” initially is a quiet,
somewhat stoic film about Bradley just trying to survive day to day. He’s not a
bad man, actually he is quite the opposite as he seems to take great effort in always
being very respectful to people he meets while simultaneously internally projecting
a heighten sense of guarded suspicion to whomever is in the room with him. But
as the film moves from his life on the outside of prison to a life inside of prison,
Bradley becomes an entity of pure intellectual meanness and calculating violence for his survival and revenge.
“Brawl in Cell Block 99” while a bit over the top
at times still reminded me of a smart HBO styled drama filled with effective intimidating
violence. A taught thriller filled with blood stained nasty and brutishness as Bradley
goes slowly and deeper into sadistic prison hell. But it is Vince Vaughn
masterful work here that makes his character sympathetic all the while he
calmly, with a constant unsympathetic demeanor, crushes bones and bashes everyone who gets in his way. AND I MEAN EVERYONE.
Available now as a film that went
straight to On-Demand.
3.25 Stars
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