LFF 2017 Review - Brawl In Cell Block 99

Certificate – 18

Director – S Craig Zahler

Starring – Vince Vaughn; Jennifer Carpenter; Don Johnson.

Running Time – 132 minutes (2 hours 12 minutes)

★★★★✩

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WHAT THE ACTUALLY FUCK IS THIS MOVIE!?!

Prison inmate Bradley (Vaughn) is forced to take desperate measures to protect his wife and unborn child.

Look I'm all for action and violence, I even sometimes laugh. But the moment got too much is when Vince Vaughn stomps on someone's head and dragging his died face along the ground and revealed a newly ripped off face.

The film actually starts slowly as you get to know Vaughn's Bradley, never Brad, and his situation leading to going to prison and you start rooting for him in every fight scene as more bones break and bloody to the point where the final 30 minutes left me feeling sick.

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Never have I been to a screening where the audience grasped so much. This is a British audience where the only other expression we have in cinemas is laughing.

So bravo director Craig Zahler for not only making a British audience react but also making me re-ill, never has a film made me so shocked I wanted to throw up.

I'm sure you're thinking "it can't be that bad?" Well, it is.

It's a shame I left so overwhelming shocked and well ill because this is arguably Vaughn's best performance ever. He's a brilliant yet horrifying action hero.

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The action was raw and stripped back compared to the slick action style of something like John Wick or Atomic Blonde. In a way, it works because sometimes you just want to see a man stamp and break someone’s face.

Brawl In Cell Block 99 is an experience I won’t be forgetting in a long time and won't be rushing to get another viewing either.

Verdict

A horrifying action movie that will leave its mark in one of Vaughn's best performances.