The first trailer for Bone Tomahawk director S. Craig Zahler’s second feature, Brawl in Cell Block 99, dropped this afternoon, and we can’t wait to see it. Come for the macho and bald Vince Vaughn and the heavy-ass violence, stay for the wonderful evocation of the trailer for the Coens’ A Serious Man. Also, if you’ve ever wondered how many punches bare-knuckle punches it’d take Vaughn to break a car window, this preview’s got the answer!
Check it out:
And then check out the trailer for A Serious Man, just so that we don’t feel like total dweebs for putting this comparison together:
We’re assuming that homage was intentional, given that Fred Melamed is present in both previews (he’s working the intake desk at the prison in the former, and is the one ramming Michael Stuhlbarg into the chalkboard in the latter), and it works surprisingly well for this material. Vaughn may never truly be able to escape the comedy work that he did in the mid-aughts, but as long as he’s here to play we think he’ll do a good job. It’s a bit hard to advertise, given that so much of this movie is going to be excessively violent and fucked-up in a way that you probably don’t want to lead with, as was the way with Bone Tomahawk (which is on Amazon Prime so go watch it, damn you), so it’s just a tantalizing little taste of what’s to come.
Here’s a synopsis, taken from the Youtube video description:
“In ‘Brawl in Cell Block 99’, a former boxer named Bradley (Vince Vaughn) loses his job as an auto mechanic, and his troubled marriage is about to end. At this crossroads in his life, he feels that he has no better option than to work for an old buddy as a drug courier. This improves his situation until the terrible day that he finds himself in a gunfight between a group of police officers and his own ruthless allies. When the smoke clears, Bradley is badly hurt and thrown in prison, where his enemies force him to commit acts of violence that turn the place into a savage battleground.”
Brawl in Cell Block 99 is premiering at the Venice Film Festival soon, and will be doing stints at Toronto International Film Festival and Fantastic Fest (both of which we’ll be at!) before hitting theaters and VOD on October 6.