How A Gory Horror-Western Starring Kurt Russell Had Us At "Cannibalistic Troglodytes"

I'm certain that in the past I've attempted to display some credibility as a film buff by citing - and probably misquoting - the dictum by great filmmaker Howard Hawks (His Girl Friday, Rio Bravo and the terrific Only Angels Have Wings) that for a movie to satisfy and succeed it needs "three good scenes, no bad ones". It's a theory that holds a bit of water, if you ask me, although I would also suggest that there's a corollary to it, and that's something I like to call, "That movie where..."

A TMW (sure, let's make it into an acronym) may indeed follow the Hawksian three-good none-bad formula but as its name suggest it's mainly known for being, "That movie where [something singularly shocking/hilarious/memorable occurs]." Hey, Guy, got any examples? Well, indeed, because this brings us (finally!) to today's topic of conversation, the up-and-coming filmmaker S Craig Zahler.

It's actually a tad inaccurate calling Zahler an up-and-comer, even though he made his feature-film debut as a writer-director only a few years ago. Prior to that, he'd penned a fair few critically acclaimed novels and screenplays, in addition to writing and performing both heavy metal and black metal (versatile!). But I know he appeared on my personal radar with his 2015 horror-western Bone Tomahawk, which follows frontier-town sheriff Kurt Russell as he leads a posse to rescue a kidnapped woman from a clan of cannibalistic troglodytes. Yes, this movie had me at cannibalistic troglodytes.

Bone Tomahawk isn't necessarily an easy watch, mainly because Zahler seems hellbent on establishing and maintaining his own particular pace. The movie doesn't really drag or dawdle, but it does mosey, taking two hours and change to tell its tale and preferring, for the most part, to dwell on character rather than incident. But Zahler also has confidence in his skills and material, and the viewer feels as if they're in safe, capable hands as a result.

Put it this way, sometimes a viewer will have an issue with a film's pace or tone, and those issues can stem from the filmmaker's lack of competence. That's not the case with Zahler - his creative decisions are conscious and for the most part pretty precise.

Which brings us to the moment, late in Bone Tomahawk, that makes it a TMW. And be warned, because there are potentially SPOILERS ahead. The remaining members of the posse have been captured by the cannibal tribe, with one strung up as meat for the cooking pot. With little warning, one troglodyte - wielding the weapon of the title - just fucking bisects this poor unfortunate with a couple of blows in a scene straight out of one of those messed-up flesh-eating flicks our Italian friends used to make back in the '70s.

So, yeah, Bone Tomahawk is that movie where, to paraphrase the great comedy Walk Hard, some poor bastard suffers a particularly bad case of being cut in half. Naturally, I was keen to see what Zahler would do next, and the title of his follow-up project piqued my interest even further. The name Brawl In Cell Block 99 alone has the appealing whiff of grindhouse cinema and/or pulp paperback, but Zahler isn't interested in the wink-wink irony that pretty much killed the would-be revival of the grindhouse aesthetic stone-dead. Brawl is grimly funny and ridiculously violent but it's not fucking around - it's serious, and it has its own rock-solid sense of integrity. Comparisons to Tarantino and Refn are not unwarranted.

And it's a TMW. You'll see why when you see it.

And you should see it if you like a little grit in your diet, and if you're partial to a pleasing comeback-kid narrative. Because after years of slowly but surely pissing away the goodwill of audiences in cheapjack comedies, Vince Vaughn pulls off a stunning career reinvention and reinvigoration with his performance here, channelling the gunmetal-hard but understated machismo of Lee Marvin or Burt Lancaster while retaining his own presence and personality.

Vaughn plays Bradley, an honourable, sensible kind of criminal and hardman - albeit one who will demolish a car with his bare hands when he receives bad news - who's just trying to provide for his wife and unborn child. But when a drug deal goes south and Bradley ends up behind bars, the scumbags he works for make a very unpleasant ultimatum: if he doesn't get himself relocated to Cell Block 99, which houses the worst of the worst inmates, and bump off a crook imprisoned there, something extremely nasty will happen to Bradley's loved ones. (You know it's gonna be nasty because the news is delivered by Udo Kier, Europe's leading distributor of disturbance.)

To get there, model prisoner Bradley, who just wanted to keep his nose clean and do his time, must pick a fight. Then another. And then another. And there's a segment in one of these fights that'll prompt you to tell your pals, "Oh, yeah, Brawl In Cell Block 99 is that movie where [REDACTED]." Brawl is now available on your physical media format of choice from your friend at Universal Sony Home Entertainment, and I do recommend you get a load of this movie's dankness in the highest-possible definition. And rejoice in the news that Zahler and Vaughn have reunited for a police-brutality drama with the evocative title Dragged Across Concrete, co-starring your problematic fave Mel Gibson.