Popular reviews

• 

  Review by Mike D'Angelo ★★★★ 13

  This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.

  75/100

  A.V. Club review, in which I decided not to address Zahler's alleged "garbage politics," as outlined here. I simply don't recognize the movie Hayes describes—Vaughn's character has no particular animus against minorities that I noticed*, nor does he seem particularly aggrieved about his status relative to anyone else. And Zahler is clearly very conscious of the optics, even as he continues to work in a deliberately disreputable mode: Just as Bone Tomahawk went out of its way to designate one particular Native American tribe as inhumanly sadistic (in contrast to all the others), Brawl makes sure to include various evil white dudes (Don Johnson, Udo Kier) along with the Mexican drug lord and his henchmen. This is not some…

• 

  Review by matt lynch ★★★★ 2

  As idiosyncratic a piece of pulp melodrama as you're likely to find. Does almost everything it shouldn't, up to and including drawing 40 minutes of plot into 130 and taking delight in empty, seriously brutal violence and the delayed gratification of same. So weird, so fun. Zahler is really onto something.

• 

  Review by Todd Gaines ★★★★ 19

  Vince Vaughn elevates curb stomping to a whole new level, Don Johnson smokes cigarellos like the Marlboro Man, Udo Kier kills you with his eyes, Jennifer Carpenter reminds us she’s way more than Dexter’s sister / ex-wife and S Craig Zahler has the potential to become one of the most complete filmmakers working today. Brawl in Cell Block 99 is one of those movies that will haunt your dreams, give you nightmares and teach you the most important lesson of them all: Never ever fuck with Vince Vaughn!

• 

  Review by pd187 ★½ 90

  legit shocked i heard good things about this boring, empty, ugly (not in the good way) blue lives matter bullshit. i love "problematic" vigilante/revenge flicks but this drags on way too long (75 minutes before "cell block 99" gets mentioned in a movie that is, no bullshit,135 minutes long) shot & color-corrected like one of those superbowl luxury car ads set to an eminem song and has a dumb groaner script based around epic boondock saints one-liners delivered in a fake* blue collar redneck drawl by the giuliani-republican millionaire wedding crasher who played fred claus in "fred claus." this is the strained cialis nuttface of every flag-respecting youtube comment on the bruce willis death wish trailer, tv-level action directed indifferently by…

• 

  Review by SilentDawn ★★★★½ 4

  90

  "America, God bless you if it's good to you
  America please take my hand
  Can you help me underst-"

  - Kendrick, XXX.

  A total jaw-dropper. Takes its time yet never does away with efficiency and repellent functions. Each scene becomes a remarkable act - a one-man-show for Vince Vaughn's stature to consume situation, ponder solutions, and "remedy" it via blunt, beautiful force. His performance is something to reckon with, monstrously splitting atoms of thought and action, decision and violence. The cross on the rear of his head is a physical line of his divide between principle and personal retribution; a true mark of god. Zahler's colorful thorn-patches of dialogue reinforce the contradictions and boil the pot, but he (thankfully)…

• 

  Review by Eli Hayes ★★★★½ 19

  "howdy."

• 

  Review by Josh Lewis ★★★★ 2

  As writer/director S. Craig Zahler had already proven with his debut film Bone Tomahawk—shocking everyone with the way his restrained, novelistic approach to style and writing eventually gave way to grindhouse carnage—he’s definitely a filmmaker to watch out for, and probably a psychopath. Brawl in Cell Block 99 is no different, his still, detached style and rigorous pacing this time applied to a noir-inspired, apocalyptic descent into the American prison system. Vince Vaughan stars as Bradley (not Brad, Bradley) Thomas, a quiet, composed man in the body of a giant, who—after he’s laid off from his towing job turns to drug-running to take care of his wife and unborn child—when a drug deal goes violently wrong is blamed and blackmailed…

• 

  Review by Ian West ★★★★★ 4

  Revisited with my homie Tony, this slab of dangerous cinema erupts into staggering displays of extremely chaotic brutality and Vince Vaughn is an unwavering bulldozer of calm. The kind of movie that blows out a little candle of humanity inside you.

• 

  Review by K. Austin Collins

  The carnage here is essential. So is the humor. The laid-back bullshitting of the first set of cops is what initially caught me; Vaughn's ability to colonize a space with his height is another high point. The prison half of the movie is an incredible descent into one of the weirdest, most shit-streaked visions of hell I've seen in recent memory--which is another reason I don't need a backstory. The willingness to break a guard's arm to get sent to a max security prison, only to hold that prison hostage until you're sent to live among the most damned of its prisoners, says more than any language, or plot, or fabricated insight could say. And the images speak for themselves, too: the vast moral and behavioral gap between the earthen dank of that last prison versus the bright sense of spaciousness and opportunity in The Fridge, with its YMCA-friendly cops who compliment the size of your dick, is pretty incredible.

• 

  Review by nickusen

  this actually happened to my uncle

• 

  Review by Naughty aka Juli Norwood ★★★★ 13

  There was so much bone cracking going on I thought I was at a chiropractors convention until I saw things like grey matter, bone and flesh that were never meant to see the light of day make their grotesque debut in the extremely graphic grindhouse featuring Vince Vaughn as a man of few words whom lets his fists (and foot) do all the talking! Losing Face takes on a whole new meaning!

  Vince Vaughn's performance was a real eye opener and should open doors to further roles considered "outside of the box" as opposed to the limited roles comedy has to offer! My psyche was his punching bag for a little over 2 hours, He had me at skull crushing!…

• 

  Review by Matthew Christman ★★★★

  Every director who is looking to make giggly, wink-at-the-camera over-the-top exploitation fair should have to watch this first. NOTHING makes those moments of pure, bloody excess POP like being surrounded by concrete detail and kitchen-sink realism.