Brawl in Cell Block 99 (2017)

Summary:

Bradley Thomas is a down on his luck ex-boxer forced to turn to drug running to make ends meet; through a series of misadventures he winds up in prison. But it gets worse- his pregnant wife is kidnapped by the cartel that Bradley used to work for, and unless Bradley can kill a high-profile inmate, who's being kept in the high security ward of the prison, the cartel’s surgeon will perform an experimental procedure to hew the limbs from his unborn child.

My Thoughts:

Last year, I checked out Zahler’s “Bone Tomahawk” at the recommendation of a friend. The violence in “Tomahawk” was absolutely brutal, and though the story was somewhat slow and probably could’ve been trimmed by a half hour, the movie was worth watching (provided you’ve got a strong stomach.) When I learned of “Brawl”, I was eager to see if Zahler could live up to “Tomahawk”, and I was not disappointed. “Brawl” is better than “Tomahawk” in many ways; it’s an epic tale of violence, revenge, and justice.

Bradley Thomas is a hulking ex-boxer with a large black cross tattoo on the back of his skull. In the first scene, Bradley is fired from his job, and upon arriving home and he finds his wife (Jennifer Carpenter, “The Exorcism of Emily Rose”) talking on the phone with another man. After a brief confrontation, she admits she’s been cheating. Bradley tells her to wait inside, and as soon as she closes the door to their house, he begins to beat his wife’s car with his bare fists. He breaks a window, pulls out the headlights, rips the hood off and throws it across the yard. The way Bradley does this is methodical, slow; he takes his time; makes every punch count. It’s the way he does everything. Bradley slowly tearing apart this car piece by piece becomes a metaphor for the whole film.

His anger abates, and Bradley goes inside to talk to his wife. He’s not angry with her, he knows things have been bad, and he promises he's going to do everything in his power to make things better. He goes to an old acquaintance (Marc Blucas of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer”) who helps him get into the drug running business. Time passes, and Bradley is at the top of his game again; his wife is happy, pregnant- their lives are going the way they want.

But alas, good things are not meant to last.

(Mild Spoilers)

During a drop, two new runners accompany Bradley. Bradley senses something is wrong and suggests they walk away, but the new runners refuse. Cops descend on the smugglers as Bradley watches from afar. One of the cops takes a bullet, and Bradley knows he can’t stand idly by. He approaches the drug runners from behind and kills them. The cops then arrest Bradley and he’s sent to jail (the judge gives him a light sentence for helping the cops.) As Bradley arrives in jail, he receives a message from the cartel: you killed our men, we’re going to cut the limbs from your unborn child unless you can kill someone for us- an ex-cartel member who’d ratted them out, who is being kept in the most secure location of the prison Bradley is being held. Bradley agrees to kill the man to save his wife.

(End of Spoilers)

Vince Vaughn deserves far more credit than he gets. In the underwhelming second season of “True Detective” he gave a standout performance, and in “Hacksaw Ridge” he did the same, but this movie is a milestone for him. Vaughn absolutely kills it (no pun intended) as the stoic, straightforward, no-nonsense, anti-hero Bradley; he dominates every frame of the screen, he has more presence than any of the other actors, by far. Even veteran actor Don Johnson (“Miami Vice”, “Django Unchained”), whom plays Warden Tuggs, pales in comparison to Vaughn.

The deliberate pacing in this movie allows for the characters to breathe and adjust to their environments before making rational decisions on what to do next. Though the word ‘Brawl’ is in the title, none of the violence is unwarranted; all of it is necessary to the story. The style of violence, too, is deliberate. The meticulous way that Bradley destroys the car at the beginning of the film is how he fights the entire movie. Bradley is an ex-boxer; he defends himself when he knows he’s going to take a hit, then packs a wallop when finds his opening. The violence is slow, but so brutal. There are broken limbs, bashed faces, beatings with barbells, headshots and much more. The camera likes to linger on each hit, making you feel the impact of every blow Bradley takes or deals out. The taught thriller builds towards the end, gathering speed as Bradley works his way through different cellblocks towards his mark.

The characters in this film are all believable, and though they commit crimes and horrible acts of violence the writing makes us sympathetic towards them. Vince Vaughn’s character in particular stays on a straight and narrow path- he knows what he has to do, and he never strays from that path, even if it means a lot of pain for him. He wants to do right by his wife, and nothing will stand in his way; he is a very commendable character in that regard. The tattoo of the cross, featured prominently throughout the film, seemed to be a symbol of a kind of sainthood achieved by the martyrdom Bradley goes through.

There’s no way to beat around the bush here; some of the effects look really bad. Really, this is the only issue I had with this film. There are some scenes where the victims of Bradley’s beatings are clearly mannequins. It is quite distracting, and honestly takes the viewer out of the movie a bit. Strangely, I said the same thing about some of the special effects in “Bone Tomahawk”. Zahler needs to find someone else to do his practical effects.

Verdict:

The movie is entertaining as all get out; intense, thrilling, satisfying, and even a little emotional at times. This is one thriller that has, sadly, flown under the radar, but it is well worth checking out if you get the chance. If you like this, keep your eyes on the horizon; Zahler has reteamed with Vaughn, Carpenter, and Johnson (and added Mel Gibson) for his next film, “Dragged Across Concrete”, which, if the title is any indication of content, could provide another bloody thrilling ride.

Review Written By:

Seth Steele

The Shape of Water (2017)

Summary:

A mute janitor, responsible for cleaning a government lab during the Cold War, develops a bond with the peculiar creature being housed there.

My Thoughts:

Guillermo Del Toro’s latest addition to the fantasy genre is reminiscent of Pan’s Labyrinth, but in all the right ways. Both “Pan” and “Water” rely heavily on tales from old folklore, myth and legend; and both are magical realism in settings of wartime. While “Pan” tells us a story about the fae, “Water” focuses on mermaids. Del Toro has built a career around his darker fantastical visions; his style is unique in that the magic in the worlds he creates is always secondary to the characters living in that world. He makes us care about the characters; we cry for them when they hurt and laugh with them when they feel happy. As we enter into the fringe of awards season, Shape of Water leads the Golden Globe race with seven nominations for Best Drama, Director, Screenplay, Score and three acting nominations for Hawkins, Jenkins, and Spencer.

Sally Hawkins (“Happy-go-Lucky”) plays the mute janitor, Eliza. Within the first few minutes of the movie, her character’s whimsy sets the tone. She goes about her daily routine in a dancelike fashion, flitting from here to there without a care in the world. It’s hard not to take a liking to Eliza immediately. She converses amiably with her neighbor, Giles, a closeted homosexual, played by Richard Jenkins (“The Cabin in the Woods”). She goes to her job where we are introduced to her effervescent friend and fellow janitor, Zelda (Octavia Spencer, “The Help”). They spend their time mopping the shadowy halls of the facility, Zelda chatting amiably away, until something is brought into a chamber; a large cylinder reminiscent of an isolation chamber, inside is one whom the credits have dubbed Amphibian Man (Doug Jones,“Hellboy”).

In the minutes after learning about the existence of this creature we are giving the foundations of the plot. Michael Shannon’s (“Fahrenheit 451”) tenacious, unflinching character, Richard Strickland, reveals that he’s dragged Amphibian Man out of the dark depths of the Amazon all the way to this tiny seaside town to find out what makes the creature tick, hoping that in studying the creature they might make a breakthrough in breathing without air- something he believes could be very useful in the Space Race against the Russians. Strickland is everything Eliza isn’t; where Eliza is a mute, Strickland is always barking commands; where Eliza is bubbly and mischievous, Strickland is always down to business, no nonsense. The two characters dance around each other creating perfect balance in celluloid. Michael Stuhlbarg (“Call Me By Your Name”) plays Dr. Robert Hoffstetler, a scientist first and foremost, but he’s also doubling as a spy for the Russians. With the characters set on the murky stage, the story begins.

Perhaps the best part of this movie is the believability of the actions taken by the characters and the changes they endure as a result. Every character, no matter how small, is dynamic; they all learn something, and different things drive them each of them towards their goals. Even Strickland, the villain of the film, has specific reasons for what he does, and though he isn’t a sympathetic character, he is one who’s actions are easy to understand when looking at it from his perspective. Giles, Zelda, and Hoffstetler, too, all have their own moral dilemmas they go up against, and each one handles it in a way that makes perfect sense for their characters.

The actors here are all veterans of their craft. Of the top billed cast only Doug Jones and Michael Stuhlbarg have yet to be nominated for an Oscar; the talent soaks through the screen without filter. Hawkins and Shannon steal the show for the majority of the movie, but Doug Jones manages to evoke a surprising amount of emotion and convey his curiosity even under all the makeup. Hawkins’s presence is something to behold, as she has next to no actual dialogue, she still manages to captivate the audience through her mannerisms and personality quirks. Her character’s happy-go-lucky nature shifts seamlessly into open defiance against Strickland, a change we are all too excited to witness. Shannon is phenomenal as always. While not nearly as subtle as he was in “Nocturnal Animals” or “Take Shelter”, he gives a chilling performance as a man driven to complete his work, even if it drives him to the brink of insanity.

Another fantastic element, one that rarely lacks in any of Del Toro’s films, is the production design. The film has a teal hue that permeates throughout, water spills, drips and pours over nearly every frame, much of the lighting is done from above and has shimmering elements to it- as if the whole movie were lit underwater. Many of patterns on the walls in the government facility look like ripples or waves. Water being in the title, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that water is featured prominently throughout the film, but Del Toro has found a way to make water flow through this film even when there’s none on screen. The design of Amphibian Man is flawless, and while it’s clearly paying homage to the “Creature from the Black Lagoon”, the design is far improved from the 1954 classic Universal Monster flick. Much like the Faun in Pan’s Labyrinth, the character relies on heavy prosthetic makeup instead of CGI, something that works to the advantage of the aesthetic- the creature feels far more tactile this way.

This is not necessarily a weakness, per say, but it is something that may turn off a number of viewers. The theme of this film revolves around love and the unconditional nature of truly unselfish love. There are brief, fragile glimpses of this type of love through the film; between Giles and the Diner owner, Zelda and the husband she complains about constantly but loves regardless. As the story progresses, a romantic interspecies relationship develops. While the story is meant to convey the idea that all love is valid, some viewers may find the relationship between Elisa and Amphibian Man a bit too strange for them. Indeed, during one of the more physical scenes of the movie I heard exclaimed from the darkened theatre a quiet uttering of the word “gross,” to which there arose a warbling of giggles. I have a hard time believing that those who can’t get past this will fully appreciate the movie; some suspension of disbelief is required for the full impact.

It is a fantasy film, after all.

Verdict

It’s rare that a fantasy film is made this well, and rarer still that the characters are so relatable and the themes are so relevant today. Del Toro has proven time and again that he knows how to create magical worlds with real emotional impact, and though this film doesn’t quite live up to “Pan’s Labyrinth” (a movie I consider to be very close to perfect), it does create a world that is unforgettable, beautiful, and, most importantly, magical. The ancient theme of love conquers all, while well-worn, still has a place in today’s world, and this film does a wonderful job of addressing the fragility and nature of misunderstood love. Fans of fantasy would be hard pressed to find a better genre film this year.

Review Written By:

Seth Steele

The Tenant (1976)

Summary:

Trelkovsky is a young bachelor renting an apartment in Paris which had previously belonged to a woman who’d committed suicide. The longer he stays at the apartment, the more paranoid he becomes about the intentions of his callous neighbors.

My Thoughts:

Reader’s Note: Before diving into the claustrophobic world of The Tenant I’d like to address the inevitable elephant in the room that unfortunately comes with every Polanski film. No, I do not approve of Polanski’s personal choices in life, but I do find his work compelling. It also does not escape me that this was the last film Polanski made before becoming a fugitive from the US following the Samantha Geimer incident. Now more than ever, as the #MeToo movement erupts across Hollywood, the question of whether or not we can judge art separately from the artist hangs in the air. I don’t have an answer for that question; you must make that choice yourself. If you’d like to hear more of my thoughts the Polanski /Geimer incident, I urge you to check out my review for “Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired”.

This film is the final and often forgotten about entry in Polanski’s Apartment Trilogy (following “Repulsion” and “Rosemary’s Baby”). The apartment trilogy is not being a conventional trilogy with a continuing storyline, instead the films center round similar themes of claustrophobia, sexual repression, paranoia and slow descent into madness. These are themes around which Polanski has built a career.

“Filthy little brat!”

When looking for an apartment to rent in Paris, Trelkovsky (Polanski, “The Fearless Vampire Killers”) wanders into a tall, narrow, gothic building where there is a room for rent on one of the upper floors. The vacancy is good news for Trelkovsky, but the reason for the opening, he soon learns, is because the previous tenant threw herself out the window (when touring the room he peers curiously out the window and sees the exact spot where she fell). Before moving in, Trelkovsky meets a curmudgeonly old neighbor (Melvyn Douglas, ”Being There” ) who complains about the woman who’d committed suicide, and all the racket she made. Trelkovsky reassures the man that he’s a quiet bachelor; the neighbor retorts, “Bachelors can be a problem, too.”

So begins the standoff.

One night, soon after moving in, Trelkovsky has a few friends over for a housewarming party, including a young woman named Stella (Isabelle Adjani, “Possession”). They drink, put on a few records, and talk quietly amongst themselves, but apparently, not quietly enough, for soon the neighbors are rapping on the door and calling for the music to be shut off and his friends to leave. Desperate to make a good impression, Trelkovsky decides he’ll keep to himself when he’s home, so as to make as little noise as possible, but in doing so he retreats into isolation. Paranoia sets in. Was there someone watching him from the dark apartment across the road? Is there someone waiting in the stairway outside his door? Who were the people wandering down in the shadows of the street? Is he being too loud as he walks about? Are his neighbors in on some malevolent plot together? What really happened to the woman who lived in the apartment before him?

Many horror films today shy away from the psychological reasons of why things scare us, instead opting for blood, gore and nudity (look at half the films included in 31 Nights of Thrills). Those films are fine if you’re looking to kill some time on a rainy afternoon. By the time you go to bed, you’ll have forgotten about the horrors you saw earlier that day. Not so with Polanski’s films. Polanski shies away from gore and guts, and instead he likes to linger on the terror of confusion. He likes to play with your emotions and make you wonder what’s gathering in the dark corners. Many times the viewer isn’t sure what is real and what isn’t. Even after the credits roll there are some questions left unanswered, or answered ambiguously. The confusion that Polanski creates for the character bleeds from the screen into the viewer’s mind, seeping deeper and lingering longer than any splatterfest today.

Fans of Polanski’s work will recognize the deliberate pacing associated with his other films (“Rosemary’s Baby” in particular); the film starts off slowly before building to its shocking, horrific climax. Polanski dazzles in taking the reins as director, lead actor, and co-writer of this brilliant piece of cinema. As his character sinks further into madness, his performance never slips. He lingers on the things that make us uncomfortable, and delights in shocking us with a disturbing ending. The viewer never really knows what is going to happen next, and even when we think we’ve figured it out, there always seems to be something else we hadn’t expected. As a horror film it succeeds in shocking, exhilarating and disturbing the audience.

Verdict

While I cannot recommend “The Tenant” to everyone, there are certainly people who will see it for the masterful work of art that it is. The film is slow but it is very rewarding for those who stick it out to the end. For fans of 70’s cinema, claustrophobic thrillers and twisty plots this film will be a delight… maybe not a delight- but certainly a thrill.

Review Written By:

Seth Steele

Ben-hur (1959)

SUMMARY

Judah Ben Hur is a Jewish Prince. When his boyhood friend, a Roman named Messala, is named Tribune of Jerusalem, Judah refuses to betray his people to him. Messala frames Judah for an assassination attempt to advance his career, condemning Judah to death and imprisoning his entire family. Judah swears revenge and will stop at nothing to destroy the man who destroyed his family.

MY THOUGHTS

I’m gonna get this out of the way. This is my favorite movie of all time. That’s not to say it doesn’t have it’s flaws but this is a biased review. This is a film I grew up with and the only real reason I am doing a review of it is because the remake came out this year and I want to do a review of that and maybe an article on it and our culture of remakes.

Why is this my favorite film? I can only get into it so deeply. I could talk for hours, and have, about why I love this film, so everything I am about to say should be taken as a sort of cliff notes version of my opinion.

STORY IS KING

The story of “Ben-Hur” is simply phenomenal. Granted it is an epic with a running time to match its grandeur and with that comes a lot of time to tell the story, but that story is told in a classic style that just isn’t seen much anymore. It is content to let you get to know the characters and not rush through their introductions and conversations, which explore deep motivations. These motivations drive the emotion and action of the film, so even though some of the stylings of the movie seem old fashioned compared to flashier films, the emotion of those scenes land more forcefully than almost any blockbuster you’ll see in the theaters this year.

It may be a long film, but it isn’t a boring one. The story is huge and when the story is big, so is the run time, because in great films, story is king.

IGNORED THEMES

The theme of “Ben-Hur” is another stand out success for me. It’s a theme largely ignored today and especially for the Christian looking for a movie with themes in line with their worldview, it’s a theme more artistically and fairly treated than in most Christian films today.

The theme of this film can be spoken of in two ways for me. The first, is that revenge, even once truly accomplished, can never satisfy the longing the wronged party feels. The second, is that only Christ can heal that which justice can only punish.

These are themes which Hollywood largely ignores today. Most art ignores them. We see plenty of revenge films where a man swears revenge, gets at the bad guy, refuses to take revenge, then is forced to kill the bad guy when they are attacked, but this is not the same. At the end of the day, the bad guy is dead and the good guy gets closure for the wrong that was done.

The problem is that this is not how life really works. This is how stories work but in real life, revenge does not heal. It punishes.

In “Ben-Hur,” the hero kills the villain only to find out that the wound his family has suffered will not heal. The villain dies with forty-five minutes left in the film! What could possibly be left to accomplish in that last act? The director shows that when all of man’s efforts to put things right have failed, the power of Christ is what heals those wounds, by restoring to Judah all that had been taken from him. Revenge could never do that.

This theme, that revenge, even justice, cannot assuage humanity’s desire for resolution and healing is almost completely ignored today and it is a powerful and needed message.

SET PIECES, ACTING, AND EPICS

These three I lump together because they work together to give this film a scale that few others accomplish. “The Ten Commandments”, “Spartacus”, “Lawrence of Arabia”, and “Ran” are all epics on a grand scale, appreciated by critics for their massive accomplishments. “Ben-Hur” belongs on that list.

The set pieces are masterfully done, especially the chariot race, where you never lose track of the action, who is in what place, why they are doing what they are doing, or the emotion that they are feeling at any given moment. The sea battle is terror inducing as you watch dozens of men scramble for their lives as their ship goes down. A ship they have been locked and chained to.

The direction does not shy away from long wide shots and would rather show you the world the characters live in than hide it from you to save money. In fact, it revels in showing you the slow lap of a field of chariots around the Great Circus, just to show you the stage these men will be required to race upon and its epic size and audience.

The acting is from a forgotten and unappreciated age for most audiences but I love it. There is something about the way lines are delivered and even written that gives them a weight which I find myself devouring as it is spoken. While they make pronouncements and speak in every room like they are performing to the back walls, it seems almost natural that they would. The scale of their speech is not so much realistic as it is matching of their surroundings. I see the remake and I think, this man doesn’t talk like a prince, and I have a hard time imagining him talking to an emperor and doing anything but cowering, but Charlton Heston (“The Agony and the Ecstasy”) and Stephen Boyd (“Fantastic Voyage”) speak with authority and power, which befits their station and the scale of this epic.

WEAKNESSES

That’s not to say this film is perfect. It’s not. The acting while many times fittingly large and grand, is sometimes too large and grand. No one will probably ever accuse Charlton Heston of being too subtle an actor.

The treatment of Christ in the film is heavy handed, though I would argue not nearly so heavy handed as in the remake. Luckily, in the day this film was made, people restrained themselves when depicting Christ and this practice saves the movie from making Jesus more of a character than he should have been. Like explosions, films best use Jesus sparingly, rather than splashing him on the screen every chance they get.

Lastly, the film is long. There are definitely sections that could be trimmed and even cut completely (I’m looking at you opening nativity scene and narration.) It was made for an audience with attention spans and youtube has unfortunately put this film out of reach for many.

FINAL THOUGHTS

It’s the greatest. What can I say? I love this film. I recommend it to all of my film friends and none of them watch it. I recommend it to all of my Christian friends and none of them watch it. I recommend it to my in-laws, and wife, and none of them watch it.

I hope someday they do. I hope you do. So here is my final plea.

If you like classic films, watch Ben Hur,

or

If you like epic films, watch Ben Hur,

Or

If you like Christian films, watch Ben Hur.

Just Watch Ben Hur.

On a side note:

Since whitewashing of casts is a current topic in film communities, yes this film whitewashes. However, I would like to point out that one of the main characters, the main love interest and female lead in the film, Esther, is actually played by a Palestinian, Haya Harareet. I just find that to be some interesting casting in an age when no one would have batted an eye.

Review Written By:

Michael McDonald