We begin with Jessica Kiang at the Playlist: “The book that will someday be written detailing the evolution of the cinematic head-stomp will be divided, rather like the most unfortunate victim of Bone Tomahawk, into two halves: before S. Craig Zahler’s Tomahawk follow-up, Brawl in Cell Block 99, and after. And by rights it deserves to be a similar marker in the career of star Vince Vaughn, who plays protagonist Bradley—occasional stompee, but more often stomper of said heads. The smooshed faces, exposed bone and constant one-gruesome-shot-more-than-we-were-expecting brutality of these moments are what will bring all the boys to the prison yard, and they do not disappoint. But it’s Vaughn’s caged-beast charisma (that bounces off the screen long before he is actually caged) and way with a wink or a pithy putdown that keeps us riveted through the substantial sections of the film where heads remain, for the time being, unstomped.”
“If anything, Brawl in Cell Block 99 undersells itself,” writes the Guardian’s Xan Brooks. “I counted five full-on brawls in Block 99, plus a couple more nearby—pretty much all instigated by Bradley. That’s because a wicked drugs kingpin has taken his wife hostage and is threatening to abort his unborn daughter if he doesn’t perform a prison hit. So now Bradley has to devise a cunning plan to bust out of his medium-security jail and into maximum-security Red Leaf prison and from there into Block 99, ‘the prison within the prison’ where the target is held.” And “Zahler seems of a mind that nothing succeeds like excess.”
“The picture really moves into another dimension, one of spectacular violence among other things, when Udo Kier shows up,” write Glenn Kenny in a dispatch to RogerEbert.com. “Those of you who know the German actor know he’s not the kind of guy who generally shows up in a Vince Vaughn movie. It’s weird. On purpose. Like The Bad Batch, which played at Venice last year, this is an American film that’s daring in potentially alienating ways. I was not alienated myself but rather disturbed and delighted, and rather in awe of many of its features, including its vintage soul-music-soundalike song soundtrack co-written by the director and sung by many old-school stars including Butch Tavares.”
“Fight choreographer Drew Leary stages the clashes with brutal efficacy, and Zahler refrains from the usual frenetic editing tricks, resulting in unflinching scenes of explosive violence that are highly physical and invigoratingly vicious,” writes David Rooney in the Hollywood Reporter. “Not to mention quite hurty. . . . Without going the martial arts route, Zahler appears to tip his hat to hyperviolent Korean cinema as well as Indonesia's The Raid movies in terms of the number of limbs snapped, though he keeps the actual body count relatively contained.”
“Bone Tomahawk was a bold debut,” writes John Bleasdale at CineVue. “Half lyrical John Ford Western, half Ruggero Deodato gore fest. Brawl on Cell Block 99 is a worthy follow up, a dark comic thriller which breaks through genre barriers and A- and B-movie distinctions. It's also gruesomely entertaining.”
VIDEO
For news and items of interest throughout the day, every day, follow @CriterionDaily.
from The Criterion Current http://ift.tt/2iRzprH
Nessun commento:
Posta un commento