Rent Brawl in Cell Block 99 (2017)
3.4 of 5 from 537 ratings
2h 7min
- General info
- Available formats
- Synopsis:
- When former boxer Bradley Thomas (Vince Vaughn) loses his job and is faced with the breakdown of his marriage, he decides to take a job as a drug courier to turn his fortunes around and provide a comfortable life for his wife Lauren (Jennifer Carpenter). Just as his situation begins to improve, a savage gunfight lands Bradley in jail where he has to make a series of impossible, chilling decisions to protect those he holds dear. Backed into a corner, Bradley now finds himself forced to commit ever more ferocious acts of violence across a vicious prison battleground on the path to the most dangerous confinement of all - Cell Block 99 .
- Actors:
- Vince Vaughn, Jennifer Carpenter, Don Johnson, Marc Blucas, Tom Guiry, Rob Morgan, Udo Kier, Dan Amboyer, Geno Segers, Fred Melamed, Clark Johnson, Pooja Kumar, Mustafa Shakir, Philip Ettinger, Jay Hieron, Devon Windsor, Larry Mitchell, Willie C. Carpenter, Victor Almanzar, Michael Medeiros
- Directors:
- S. Craig Zahler
- Producers:
- Jack Heller, Dallas Sonnier
- Writers:
- S. Craig Zahler
- Studio:
- Universal Pictures
- Genres:
- Action & Adventure, Drama, Thrillers
- Collections:
- Behind Bars: Visit These Essential Prison Films, Films & TV by topic
- BBFC:
- Release Date:
- 26/12/2017
- Run Time:
- 133 minutes
- Languages:
- English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1, French DTS 5.1, Polish Voice Over DTS 5.1
- Subtitles:
- Czech, Danish, Dutch, English Hard of Hearing, Finnish, French, Icelandic, Norwegian, Polish, Swedish
- Formats:
- Pal
- Aspect Ratio:
- Widescreen 1.85:1
- Colour:
- Colour
- BLU-RAY Regions:
- B
- Bonus:
- Journey to the Brawl - Making of Featurette
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Reviews (15) of Brawl in Cell Block 99
Unpleasant and boring - Brawl in Cell Block 99 review by CS
It's difficult to know where to start other than to say 'don't waste your time'. The script is awful, the acting wooden and the plot
takes too long to get going and revolves around every increasing degrees of sadistic violence. What's more, it is just plain boring.
3 out of 7 members found this review helpful.
Slow start but gets great - Brawl in Cell Block 99 review by SM
From the director of bone tomahawk, I new what to expect in the way of over the top violence. Vince Vaughn stars as the lead character who is actually very good in a serious role. For reasons I won’t go into to not spoil the movie is sent to prison which where the violence starts. My only problem with this movie is it does take a long time to get going but when it does it is worth the wait. The story is good and after a while the action and over the top violent scenes are great with some good acting
2 out of 3 members found this review helpful.
Break a leg (or an arm) - Brawl in Cell Block 99 review by KN
Disappointing considering the directors previous film the excellent Bone Tomahawk. Vince Vaughn is very good but there’s not enough back story or depth to excuse the gratuitous violence. Lots of style especially at the beginning, and some hip dialogue but ultimately who cares
1 out of 1 members found this review helpful.
Critic review
Brawl in Cell Block 99 review by Mark McPherson - Cinema Paradiso
Vince Vaughn ventures far outside his comfort zone for Brawl in Cell Block 99. Way outside, as though he were visiting another planet. We’ve become so accustomed to him in mid-tier comedies that it’s a shock to see him in a brutal action film that goes the extra mile for the most gruesome of violence. But it’s all the more intriguing that once the shock of blood and guts wears off, Vaughn’s performance is genuinely stellar past being so surprising.
He plays former boxer/drug mule, Bradley Thomas, desperately trying to get his life together. After losing his auto-repair job and coming home to find his wife is cheating on him, this would seem like the point where he loses it. But he remains calm enough to take the violence out on his car and not his wife. After some bloody knuckles and car parts strewn on the lawn, he aims to fix his marriage calmly. This, unfortunately, means going back to being a drug mule. At first, it works. They have a better house and a kid on the way.
But one bad deal with some untrustworthy people leads to Bradley ending up in prison. Bradley aims to serve out his sentence calmly, but some unsavory gangsters won’t let him go so easily. If Bradley wants to keep his wife and children safe, he must be the baddest dude in the cell block to make it to a high-security prison and assassinate one of the most locked-up inmates.
And that’s all the plot you need as the rest of the film features Vaughn battling his way through prison, beating up guards and savagely brutalizing other prisoners. In the tradition of classic exploitation films, the violence is relentless. No broken bone, slashed chest, or crushed-in skull doesn’t carry a gritty bite. It’s an unapologetically vicious film that nearly replicates the same over-the-top gore of The Story of Ricky. The only thing holding it back from such levels is a ridiculous scene involving intestines being used to choke somebody. But it certainly comes close with a rather grizzly scene of Vaughn kicking someone’s face into the pavement and dragging it across with his foot.
The movie doesn’t try anything more than earnest grindhouse affair. There’s no deeper backstory to Bradley and Vaughn plays this characters perfectly in an understated manner. There’s rage inside him that he quietly denies, keeping it bottled for someone who truly deserves it. I love how this side of him only comes out in moments when he shields himself from chaos and quickly retreats when not needed. When he blows off steam in the yard, he comes inside a different man. When he senses a drug deal going south, he makes the tough call and turns himself in, silently and without emotion or resistance. He doesn’t need to grit his teeth for this role. Everyone else is already doing so as he snaps their limbs and rips out arteries.
To call this film an excuse for violence is not wrong, but what more can you expect from a film like Brawl in Cell Block 99. It promises exactly what one would expect; a bloody and gory battle of one man trying to the right thing outside by doing the wrong thing inside. It sure beats the plot of gangsters holding Bradley’s wife which becomes a little more farfetched as it progresses. It’s just more fun to watch Vaughn play a violent prisoner who squares off against tough inmates and a warden played by Don Johnson. There’s something so darkly amusing about such a premise. I admired the film from this aspect, but with a warning for violence that turns the picture more horror than action.