A tow truck driver (Vince Vaughn) with a vaguely explained violent past loses his job only to discover his wife (Jennifer Carpenter) is having an affair. They soon patch things up, and he begins drug running for a friend, a gig that quickly lands him a seven year stint in prison. When his now pregnant wife is kidnapped, he is extorted into fighting his way into the state maximum security unit and offing a prisoner wanted dead by her captors. Brawl in Cell Block 99 takes forever to get going and the dialogue is incredibly vacuous but the film becomes completely engrossing, in the same fashion as writer/director S. Craig Zahler's Bone Tomahawk did while sill relishing in the ever increasing, incessant violence. Vaughn delivers a commanding and empathetic performance and Don Johnson has a great walk-on role on a sadistic, no-nonsense prison warden.
** 1/2 out of ****
