From S. Craig Zahler, mastermind behind the 2015 horror Western Bone Tomahawk, comes another gritty, hyperviolent bloodbath. This time starring Vince Vaughn.
What? I know. Vince Vaughn carries the movie as Bradley Thomas, the muscly drug mule and skilled fighter. Under his tattooed and shaved head and grim demeanor, Bradley's actually surprisingly articulate with his few words, and the first act of the film acquaints us with his life. He's done with crime and working to build a solid life for himself and his wife. Unfortunately, the two struggle in their marriage after a miscarriage and some infidelity. To patch things up (this scene was just weird, okay?) Bradley decides to go back to work as a mule, breaking his promise just as his wife broke her vow. It takes two!
All goes swimmingly until one job goes awry for a new client named Eleazar. Suspicious, Bradley fumbles the job and gets arrested. Once in prison, Bradley meets other thugs working for this Eleazar, and we are led to believe he was specifically chosen for this botched-job assignment so he could do far worse crimes inside the prison system. Furthermore, Eleazar has had his thugs kidnap Bradley's pregnant wife, threatening to do really horrible things to her and her fetus (yeah, I'm not even going to repeat the atrocities, but believe me, they're all spelled out) if he does not comply. His goal: to kill a Christopher Bridge, who is located in a maximum security facility.
How does a low-ranking drug mule get to maximum security (if he's white, of course)? Well he has to show how dangerous he is. Bradley picks fights with other inmates and with the guards in a series of brutal scenes that take absolute pleasure in bones breaking and skin ripping and all kinds of horrific effects.
The film proceeds with a cold, calm calculation, which seems ironically at odds with the heated, ultraviolent story. That's why it works. I couldn't have cared less about the super-contrived religious imagery (Bradley has a huge cross tattooed on his shaved head) or the not-so-veiled political issues (prison life, racial and ethnic prejudice, and of course the outspoken conservativism and libertarianism of Zahler, Vaughn, and other frequent collaborators including Mel Gibson and Kurt Russell). Thankfully, these issues are only present upon close examination, a luxury I could not approach as I was too horrified by the film to want to look closer.
That said, when, near the end, we realize that there is no Christopher Bridge, I was so shocked I yelled aloud at my television screen. Much like Bradley, we realize we've been totally hoodwinked, and that Bradley has been summoned to Eleazar's private domain so that he can be tortured psychologically and physically for failing in his latest mission. It's one of the cheapest but most effective tricks I've ever fallen for in a movie. Actually, it felt like something Tarantino would do -- that is, make the movie so palpably and opaquely about violence itself -- except that Zahler actually does it with artistry.
And, really, that's my whole takeaway from this movie. Zahler is basically Tarantino, but classier, smarter, and with a genuine aesthetic sense. That...and Vince Vaughn is actually damn good in this movie.
IMDb: Brawl in Cell Block 99
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