There’s a saying that “truth is stranger than fiction” and that’s because reality has no editor or studio rep calling something too unbelievable to remain in the script. Right now, what’s happening in the world, specifically within the United States, feels like a writer’s room not only jumped the shark, they did it with jet skis, identified itself as the darkest timeline, and then told us it was all a dream. With so many unrealistic events happening at once, no wonder folks look for logic in their stories. Logic within a story, however, implies that there’re rules to be followed rather than consequences to be endured. This is where writer/director Vincent Grashaw (What Josiah Saw) comes in with his true crime adaptation Bruton, screening during Locarno Film Festival 2026, as it tells the story of unbelievable Bryan Bruton whose time in prison only made the constantly-moving man more volatile until the heat became too much. Featuring Theo Rossi (Emily the Criminal) as Bryan, Bruton seeks to depict over a decade of Bryan’s life wherein one shitty decision escalated to life-changing consequences that grew more outrageous as they went on.
Theo Rossi as Bryan Bruton in BRUTON. Photo Credit: JIB LLC. Photo courtesy of Locarno Film Festival.
Bruton begins in Oceanway, a neighborhood within Jacksonville, Florida, as Bryan deals drugs while attempting to transition to a legitimate business with dirt and concrete. One evening, after a girl he’d been flirting with tells Bryan’s wife, Sienna (Aya Cash), that she’s pregnant, Bryan struggles to convince Sienna that the girl is lying. Making matters worse, the girl’s siblings threaten to come to their house and hurt Bryan. While not worried for himself, he is for his wife and young daughter, Crystal (Alexandria Jane Arnold), so he grabs his brother-in-law, hops in his construction truck and heads over, at which point things go south. Ten years in prison at Lake Butler Prison, specifically. This would be a time to begin recovery and try to figure out how to make things right when he gets out, except Bryan sees opportunity everywhere and just can’t seem to let a single one pass by.
L-R: Aya Cash as Sienna Bruton and Theo Rossi as Bryan Bruton in BRUTON. Photo Credit: JIB LLC. Photo courtesy of Locarno Film Festival.
Bruton is not your average true crime prison drama. Much of this is in the execution Grashaw employs to tell the story (Rossi’s narrations, incorporation of VHS-style interludes, an almost 1980s Miami Vice (TV version) vibe to tap that “Florida Man” 2000s energy, among other things) so that the film can balance its drama amid some ludicrous situations. This is very important because Grashaw wants us to lean into the story not to empathize with Bryan but to leave space to understand him. Some crime dramas, especially true crime adaptations, might give the impression of approving of choices or putting forward a notion that one should idolize a person or their behavior (an unfortunate by-product of too little media literacy and too many programs featuring bad guys as protagonists). This isn’t to say that Grashaw believes Bryan to be a bad guy, per se, it’s that the story captures the complex humanity of a person whose choices carried heavy consequences of their own making. In the same way that there are those for whom karmic retribution never seems to come, it always seems to find Bryan in a way that implies broken systems everywhere and a man who tries to make the best of wherever he’s placed next.
Without getting mired in the details of the film, even though much of the tale is public record and even discussed widely by Bruton since his release, an example I can provide easily is the presentation Grashaw uses for Bryan’s initial sentencing. With descriptor text at the bottom of the screen, Grashaw informs us that the dialogue from the judge at Bryan’s hearing is taken directly from transcripts, detailing that while Bryan would likely be freed via a jury trial, because of choices made and this not being a jury trial, he’s going to get 10 years for his crime. Via narration from Bryan, we learn that (a) Bryan’s not had any significant charges against him to warrant a 10-year sentence and (b) because of where he’s located in Florida, moving forward with a jury trial might’ve gotten him worse due to local biases — this was a crap shoot and he lost. It’s noteworthy that, before we get to that part of the film, a reconstruction of an interview implies that the escalation of events was entirely falsified, meaning that none of the violence that occurred, even the accident that led to Bryan’s incarceration, could not or should not have happened, if not for the lies of one person. Except, if we walk it back, we see that there were multiple failures before, including but not limited to, the girl’s parents being former clients of Bryan’s (so he knew the chaotic and unsupportive lifestyle she grew up in), him being married and flirting with said girl, and her warning him that she doesn’t handle perceived disrespect well. Then, to top it all off, you have someone in a place of power (a judge) who chooses to handle an accident as if it was an intentional crime. While, morally, we can split hairs on Bryan’s culpability all day long, ethically, if things went down as we saw, (amid the many choices that Bryan made that night) his choice to keep driving was the worst, but it being worth 10 years is debatable. If the systems meant to keep its citizens safe fail at every stage, what’s the actual point? This is where the amusing part of Bruton rises to the surface as Bryan slowly develops a financial enterprise at Lake Butler that earns himself and his friends a pretty penny until, like Icarus, he pushes things too hard and comes crashing down.
L-R: Theo Rossi as Bryan Bruton and Tony Hale as Kai in BRUTON. Photo Credit: JIB LLC. Photo courtesy of Write the Power Outreach.
Fascinatingly, Grashaw’s construction of events and Rossi’s portrayal of Bryan creates a very interesting push-pull throughout the film. One part of his life appears to be driven by compulsion, whether it’s to sell a car or drugs to make money for his dirt and concrete business or chatting up a girl when he’s married or leveraging a relationship with a prison guard to develop a production line that can net him five figures a month from just one venture. The other is represented by Bryan’s relationship to Crystal. The film opens with Bryan in prison and a voice-over telling us that how one spends the time matters. Thus, one can presume that Bryan is either lying to himself about what matters to him (Crystal) or that he just had to experience a series of trials in order to hit rock bottom, thereby enabling himself to finally get out of his own way. Each step of the way, Rossi convincingly inhabits someone who’s direct and honest with others, even if not always with himself. Rossi gives Bryan a necessary charm and, simultaneously, a vulnerability so Bryan doesn’t become a personality or stock prison figure, a dimensionality that must be maintained in order for the audience to stay on his side. While Rossi and the ensemble cast manage to make all of their characters feel unique even within the very well-worn structure of prison films, it’s the construction and execution of the Bryan-Crystal storyline that powers all of Bruton’s emotional underpinnings. Thankfully, Rossi and Kayden Tokarski (as older Crystal) are up to the task, making a great deal out of very little (by the time Tokarski enters the narrative), landing the emotional wallop that comes from the separation of parent and child over an extended period of time through a vengeful system that only sees punitive punishments as the means of rehabilitation or, more accurately, as the only means of ensuring that an inmate remains one.
L: Theo Rossi as Bryan Bruton in BRUTON. Photo Credit: JIB LLC. Photo courtesy of Locarno Film Festival.
As wonderful as it is to find success, to be surrounded with the things you desire, clarity often comes from the absence of something. The way that Grashaw positions Bruton, clarity is achieved from not having any place to go except inward, to confront the parts of ourselves that we can’t run from any further, sharpening what is real from what is ethereal. As a prison story, it’s equal parts unbelievable and established cinematic tropes; however, as a tale of a father’s love for his daughter, it feels fresh enough through the performances offered throughout to keep us engaged and rooting for Bryan. This is a massive credit to Grashaw for casting actors who are more than their initially appearing tropes and caricatures, allowing for truth to pierce through and strike us. In the end, it doesn’t matter how much of Bruton’s story is real and how much of it is amplified through cinematic adaptation, what matters is what we take from it and what we realize we should leave behind.
Screening during Locarno Film Festival 2026.
For more information, head to the official Locarno Film Festival Bruton webpage.
Final Score: 3.5 out of 5.
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Categories: In Theaters, Reviews
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