Anna Daniels
While Jennifer Carpenter has delivered a couple of impressive vocal performances since Dexter rode off to that great logging company in the Pacific Northwest, she hasn’t shied away from performing in front of the camera as well, having found a big-screen patron of sorts in cinematic rabble-rouser S. Craig Zahler. If that name sounds familiar, it’s because Zahler is the button-pushing provocateur behind such modern B-movie marvels as Bone Tomahawk, Brawl in Cell Block 99, and 2019’s disturbing dirty cop caper Dragged Across Concrete.
In the hyper-violent Brawl in Cell Block 99, Carpenter plays Lauren Thomas, the wife of Vince Vaughn’s Bradley Thomas, a retired boxer whose life of crime lands him behind bars at the Redleaf Correctional Facility, where his troubles only grow more intense. Throughout it all — even the more alienating elements of the film — Carpenter stayed devoted to the madness while breathing necessary life into a character that’s not quite three-dimensional. She did the same in Dragged Across Concrete, bringing a refreshing humanity to her limited role tortured young mother Kelly Summer, who serves as a smaller character against leads Mel Gibson and Vince Vaughn, who portray a pair of cops suspended after assaulting a suspect.
Written by: Looper
