You know what I mean. That was the end of the movie for me. When he basically crippled an innocent man, I stopped rooting for him, and with that, had no reason to watch the rest of the movie.
shareI think her he had to do that in order to be considered dangerous or crazy enough to be transferred to cell-block 99.
shareYes, that's a tricky one ain't it?
We're not used anymore to being asked to check or re-think our identification with the main protagonist so far into the running-time of a film, without the director telling us (more or less subtly) what moral stance we should adopt.
Complex characters in a complex world with complex motivations. No safety net. Means the viewer actually has to do some work.
I think that's precisely what makes Zahler's film so fresh, captivating, smart and respectful of its audience intelligence.
I find the most provocative masterpiece in terms of gradual challenge of the viewers identification with an increasingly violent protagonist, and questioning of one's relationship to on-screen violence as a film viewer, is probably the Belgian film 'Man Bites Dog' (1992, original title 'C'est Arrivé Près de Chez Vous').
I dunno. Somehow I had no problem rooting for Walter White, though I know a lot of people did have such trouble. For that matter, same with Tony Soprano. But this... no.
shareAgreed. Same here. That's precisely why I find Brawl in Cell Block 99 more interesting than both these TV series (although I have to say I've only seen the first 2 seasons of Breaking Bad).
I thought the moral grey areas in The Soprano and Breaking Bad were often attenuated by the direction.
In Brawl, although the camera at first follows Bradley very closely, just above and behind his shoulder (Dardennes brothers style...), it slowly becomes detached from him as the film progresses, and focuses on the physical space around him (that keeps getting smaller and smaller) and the rooms which he has to "go through" almost as in a survival video game...
I wonder if the writer/director considers prison guards in general to be "innocent."
shareBradley was a psychopath. He didn't just murder his enemies, he murdered them with glee. He also took out innocent people without flinching. And we're supposed to believe he did it all for love and cried at the end? Gtfoh!
shareNot really. More like he makes up his mind, and then does what he has to do. Accepting the consequences. "Looking at it" as Kurtz says in Apocalypse Now.
He clearly has a moral compass, and he reluctantly goes back to take out the two goons once they start shooting at cops.
That's what's so great about all Zahler films: you can literally see the inner deliberation going on in his characters' minds when faced with extraordinarily difficult situations, and you never know what choice they're going to make (but you can feel that it costs them).
Yeah..I think a cop would have killed him or put him in a coma after that. And it only got worse from there.
share