Brawl in Cell Block 99

The title of this crime drama turned prison thriller suggests a cheap action movie. But Brawl in Cell Block 99 is actually a smart film that draws on pulp crime conventions to tell a story rooted in character, sacrifice, and love. Vince Vaughn bulks up to play Bradley, a former drug courier and sober alcoholic with anger issues and a capacity for violence. Unemployed and floundering in a failing marriage, Bradley returns to the drug trade as a last ditch effort to save everything and he ultimately lands in prison. Bradley is a self-aware man who struggles (and succeeds) to keep his violence in check (unusual for the genre), a character whose moral code and commitment to his marriage makes viewers root for him even before he's blackmailed into killing a man in maximum security. Written and directed by S. Craig Zahler, the film is as brutal as the title suggests: bones are snapped, bodies broken, flesh beaten, and heads crushed to a bloody pulp—all in close-up. But what might have been simply lurid spectacle is elevated by both Vaughn's strong performance and a script that grounds the violence in emotion and devotion. Recommended. (S. Axmaker)