Brawl in Cell Block 99: S. Craig Zahler is the Best

Brawl in Cell Block 99 is f**king awesome. Sorry for the swearing but I loved every second of the insane fist fights and carnage. It is a well-written splatterfest that features a believable badass performance from Vince Vaughn. The choreographed fight scenes play out beautifully and they reminded me a lot of this years Atomic Blonde featuring Charlize Theron hurting people.

Brawl in Cell Block 99 tells the story of a hulking drug courier named Bradley Thomas (Vince Vaughn) going to jail for a delivery gone wrong. During the drop the police arrive and his two untrustworthy cohorts engage in a gunfight with the arriving police. Bradley doesn’t want any cops to die so he kills one of the men and knocks out another. His act of bravery lands him in a minimum security prison for seven years and luckily not a terrible prison in Austria (inside movie joke). The cartel he betrayed aren’t happy so they kidnap his pregnant wife Lauren (Jennifer Carpenter) and tell him he needs to get himself into a maximum security prison to kill a guy. From there things get very violent…

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What I love most about the film is how you feel every punch and arm snap. Director S. Craig Zahler (Bone Tomahawk) has once again created a violent world filled with great dialogue and characters. The movie unfolds logically and I love how you buy into Vaughn being an unstoppable force of nature. You like his character a lot and understand that he dug his own grave when he decided to get back into the drug trade. Bradley never makes excuses and everything he does throughout the film is to protect his wife and unborn child.

If you are into grueling fights and neat dialogue I totally recommend you watch Brawl in Cell Block 99.