Never Seen It #215: Brawl in Cell Block 99

"You ever try blogging?" "No." "You should. We're blogging 400 movies we've never seen before." "I'd rather knit baby booties with pink yarn than blog movies for no reason."

Brawl in Cell Block 99

2017

S. Craig Zahler

"There's too much violence" would be a really stupid thing to say about a movie whose whole purpose is violence. I'm not going to say it. I don't believe it, either. I don't lust for blood, but I also have a high tolerance. I guess it's the difference between throwing a punch and taking a punch—I don't revel in the entertainment of violence and don't see myself in any of this, but in terms of witnessing violence as a form of art, I'll accept it. Brawl in Cell Block 99 is extremely violent.

It's a matter of meeting a film where it is. Brawl in Cell Block 99 does not pretend to be anything else other than a hypermasculine gorefest. In this way, it protects itself from criticisms I might normally lob toward films that are trying to be more. I thought, for instance, that the dialogue was hilariously terrible. But is Brawl in Cell Block 99 designed to sound poetic? No, it is not. It's not even trying, and so how can I say it failed? There is no poetry here, only brutal, squeamish prose.

Brawl in Cell Block 99 landed on this list of films I'd never seen before but felt like I should due to the fact that the idea of Vince Vaughn being the lead role in such a violent, unfunny film intrigued the hell out of me. Enough to watch it unprompted? Probably not—like I said, I'm not seeking this kind of shit out, typically. But I was intrigued enough that I figured I could use a Never Seen It list to motivate me to finally check it out. There are a lot of movies like this on the list. It says more about me than the film.

So does Vince Vaughn do a good job? Sure. He is tall and menacing, and I believed him when I saw him breaking prison guards' arms. That's all you have to do as an actor. You make the audience believe. Though I figured he might struggle in the role, just based on the smirking bullshit he pulls in comedies he typically operates within (The Internship, as one recent-for-me example, was one of the worst movies I've ever seen), he didn't struggle at all. He does his job. He acts the part.

I'm hesitant to lay down too many compliments, because the role wasn't very nuanced. He needed to find a balance between anger and violent composure, and he did that. There was very little depth to the character of Bradley Thomas. He loved his wife and turned himself into killing machine to protect her. And maybe for another movie I might say something like "that inner turmoil that such a character might typically feel was not evident in Vince Vaughn's performance," but again, that's not what we're here for, and so I don't feel compelled to make that argument, even though it's true. Vince Vaughn wasn't called on to express nuance in a well-intentioned man becoming by necessity a hardened killer. He was called upon to crack skulls. And he does that. A lot.

This isn't a "classic" film like we cover the majority of the time in this column, so there isn't much to read up on in the aftermath of my viewing. A few reviews, that's basically it. The thing that stood out to me in reading the reviews was that all of them made reference to exploitation films of the 1970s, and noted how this was an homage. I think that's probably a fair assessment, and might be why I find myself not connecting to Brawl in the same way that these film critics did in 2017. Namely, that I'm not really familiar with those exploitation/grindhouse films. I am familiar with the concept of such a film, but at this point am more familiar with modern films that attempt to consciously recreate those types of films than I am with the originals. 

The ideal thing to do would be to say "okay, I'm interested in watching a 2017 film that seems to comment on and/or elevate this genre of old movies, so what should I watch first?" And then go watch the 1954 B-movie Riot in Cell Block 11 or something. But as you well know, that's not how this film club is operating. We're jumping all over the place. Eventually, I might have to work backwards. For now, I just have to take the film at its word—this is so incredibly violent, not because it's cheap or fails in some way, but because it's a specific and artful tribute to the films that came before it. 

I purposefully use "artful" there because I believe it to be the truth. This was violent, and suffered in plot and dialogue and character-building because of that, but also... it looked fucking fantastic while doing it. The fight scenes were well choreographed, the gore didn't necessarily come off as real but it felt "real" in a "movie magic" sort of way (i.e. "oh shit, I know that actor didn't actually get his arm broken by Vince Vaughn, but it was shocking to see that fake arm broken in such a gory way!!!"). I had questions about the plot, but those questions easily melted away, simply because it was thrilling to see this dude's descent into hell. You wonder how the film can top itself, and then it does, and does so methodically, slowly, continuously upping the ante for 132 minutes.

Does this make it a good movie? I don't know, man. Probably not, no. I didn't feel that inner spark I usually feel when I'm watching something special. But there's another type of thrill, and that comes from witnessing something that is visually compelling. Remember when L.B. Jefferies couldn't look away from the rear window, even when he knew that what he was witnessing was evident to a grisly murder? I felt like Jefferies while watching Brawl in Cell Block 99. I could tell you that I'm not interested in violence, but I saw a lot of it here, and I am forced to admit that I could not stop staring.

GRADE: 3 pukes out of 5

NEXT TIME: Join us tonight at 9 PM for a Zoom about White Heat, and then come back Thursday morning when we move the discussion to the blog.