Bruton (Locarno) Film Review: Prison Drama 101

Bruton takes a fascinating true crime story and boils it down to the prison clichés we’ve seen in other, better films.

From the start, director/writer/editor Vincent Grashaw tries to show off his style, shooting the barbed wire and fences of a prison perimeter with a handheld video filter, accompanied by narration from Bruton (Theo Rossi, of Emily the Criminal). There is undeniable ambition in Bruton, but it struggles to get out from the suffocating weight of its influences.

Bruton is no Henry Hill, and no amount of narration, criminal hijinks or needle drops will convince the viewer otherwise. Where Hill’s story started with his childhood worship of the local mafia, and his seduction into the mob way of life. Bruton opens with its titular lead dealing drugs, but all the while his narration assures us he wants out of this life. He wants to start a business, work on his marriage and raise his daughter Crystal (Kayden Tokarski). Besides dooming himself to failure by making his wishes known, Bruton’s keenness on flirting with the local jailbait seals the deal. 

Grashaw’s script gives us no reason to worry or root for Bruton from the start, meaning that when he ends up killing a man in a motor accident, audience investment is minimal. He doesn’t have to be likeable, but empathy for a drug-dealing screw-up with an unjustifiable John Wayne-sized swagger and too much to lose is in short supply. Even when he’s sentenced to 10 years for vehicular manslaughter, Bruton should be taking the journey on his own, but we’re dragged along with him whether we want to or not.

Part of the problem is Rossi’s performance. His line deliveries feel exaggerated coming from his relatively slight frame (You can even compare them to the real Bruton. He has a YouTube channel in which he details his prison experiences in all his muscly glory), as he’s towered over by bulkier fellow criminals. He tries, but the tough guy act becomes a bore. It doesn’t help that much of his dialogue is clichéd chatter that sounds like Oz’s warmed-up leftovers. 

As Bruton negotiates his way through the prison cliques, he accumulates a group of stereotype friends (Aaron Quick Nelson’s heavy, Kelvin Hodges’ jumpy sidekick and, most improbably, Tony Hale as the quiet hobbyist Kai). No-one expects The Shawshank Redemption, but the episodic nature of Bruton’s script means that events that could be their own movie come and go too quickly. Bruton and Kai set up a clandestine radio station to broadcast outside the prison, while Bruton helps run a distribution network for smuggled-in phone SIM cards. Grashaw can’t focus on the extraordinary things Bruton experienced just by living in the Florida correctional system. At least he realises the potential for drama in Bruton’s biggest gambit.

In 2007, Bruton and some co-conspirators attempted to escape from prison. An elaborate plan was concocted with fake uniforms, scheduled flights out of the U.S., and some inside help. Willis (Tammy Blanchard), a female guard and paramour of Bruton’s, offers to help him escape out of affection that isn’t necessarily returned. Female characters are so often missing from the testosterone-laden world of the prison movie, and it’s an odd sign of how much Bruton doesn’t work as a prison movie that the women who are most affected by Bruton’s actions are the richest characters.

Blanchard does a fine job of channeling the doubts and fears of a lonely woman being exploited into action. Meanwhile, Tokarski is properly affecting as the teenage Crystal, who finds love for her troublemaker father from afar. Any scene with Crystal trying in vain to see her father and restore his visitation rights is a high point, because she’s about the only person who finds anything of value in a relationship with him. Had the prison break or radio show storylines been allowed to breathe, other relationships might have been given the time to develop.

Bruton is one man’s victory lap for surviving the hell of the U.S. penal system. The film makes clear that his survival was hard earned, but it tells the story in a rushed way with the same beats we’ve seen before, and which we will probably see again before long. There’s an argument in here against just how unfair the sentencing and parole processes are in the system, but you’ll have to sit through reheated servings of Papillon and Prison Break to find them.

Bruton had its World Premiere at the Locarno Film Festival on August 12, 2026. The film will be screened again on August 13-15.