Brawl in Cell Block 99 (2017)
Directed by S. Craig Zahler
After working as a drug courier and getting into a brutal shootout with police, a former boxer finds himself at the mercy of his enemies as they force him to instigate violent acts that turn the prison he resides in into a battleground.
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3 films that influenced Brawl in Cell Block 99
What critics say influenced Brawl in Cell Block 99
Many filmmakers have been influenced by the gritty neon glow of Michael Mann’s “Thief,” but Zahler may be the first to shoot images that have that look in endless long static-stare medium shots, with a wide-angle lens and no cuts.
And in these, you can see the influence of writer/director S. Craig Zahler (Bone Tomahawk) who likes to do things old school.
The film relishes every bloody moment to the point that it makes the violence in Zahler’s previous film, Bone Tomahawk, look tame by comparison.
As with his terrific horror-western Bone Tomahawk, Brawl in Cell Block 99 makes space for the film-maker’s ingenious musical compositions, in this instance performed in the medium of endearing cod-Philadelphia soul.
Even if you’re familiar with S. Craig Zahler ‘s 2015 burner Bone Tomahawk — a slow, character-driven Western punctuated by a third act of horrific gore — Brawl in Cell Block 99 is probably not the film you’re expecting.
In regards to the script, there are a lot of familiar elements to CB 99, but much like he did in Bone Tomahawk, Zahler takes those recognizable tropes and masterfully massages them in some rather unique ways.
Like his feature debut, the talky, bloody horror western Bone Tomahawk, this film is unusually slow-paced for its genre, but Zahler’s screenplay is driven by a solid central character and dialogue that might have made Elmore Leonard sit up straight.
And land it does, often on people’s skulls, as Zahler goes several steps beyond American History X in delivering a series of head stomps that are as gnarly as anything seen on-screen in recent memory.
Tall, deceptively thick, and bald with what looks like a Celtic cross tattooed on his head, he looks like an extra from American History X (maybe that's where he learns his dreaded curb stomp).