Movie Review: The Brave One
Jodie Foster Delivers a Subtley Powerful Psychological Thriller
The Brave One showcases Jodie Foster's phenomenal acting ability in this new thriller. Foster delivers her usual intense performance with chemistry and panache.
The Story
Two-time Academy Award winner, Jodie Foster, stars as Erica Bain, the host of a New York City radio talk show called “Street Walk.” In a brutal attack one night while walking her dog, her fiancé is beaten to death, her dog is taken, and she is beaten to within an inch of her life. After three weeks in the hospital, Erica awakens to find herself a changed woman.
At first, she is afraid to leave her apartment. When she does, she goes down to the police station to inquire as to the status of finding the thugs who attacked her. When she realizes that she is just a case number in a sea of crime victims, something within her shifts and she abruptly marches into a gun shop. Her desperate reply to the 30-day wait for a gun license is, “I won’t survive that long!” She buys an illegal 9-millimeter pistol with a box of bullets for $1,000. Perhaps she had revenge on her mind; perhaps it was mere survival instinct.
The story progresses to her evolution of using the gun in self-defense in multiple shootings: at a convenience store, in a subway, etc., and being labeled as a “vigilante.” The radio fans respond well to Erica Bain’s change in perspective, which only highlights the stark contrast of the inner psychological turmoil she is experiencing and that fact that nobody in her life knows that she is the cold-blooded killer, the vigilante.
The plot ending is Hollywood-predictable, but the emotional conclusion between Foster and Howard is gratifying.
The Cast
While the movie has plenty of characters, Erica Bain and the psychological transformation she undergoes is the central focus of the movie. Terrence Howard plays a homicide detective named Sean Mercer, and Naveen Andrews plays the fiancé, David Kirmani. Jodie Foster’s chemistry is superb with both actors. The chemistry between Foster and Howard is subtle and complex, and is especially gratifying at the climax of the movie. The plot was kept simple and clean by not overdeveloping characters such as the landlady, the concerned friend, the detective’s partner, or the victims.
The Psychology
The story is not a “shoot-‘em-up-harry” action film. It’s a psychological thriller. The plot is straightforward and simple, allowing Jodie Foster’s intense emotional acting ability to carry the movie and give the audience a chance to participate.
Bain’s character is described as being “on lockdown, all closed up emotionally” by a young man who saw her on the subway. The film effectively portrayed the shift from Bain’s character as a happy, healthy, passionately loving woman to a dispassionate, emotionally shut down, broken woman.
The film does not spell out the moral implications of taking the law into one’s own hands. The audience is obligated to participate in the moral and ethical reasoning. The first shooting was a clear case of self-defense. The second shooting might have been unnecessary, but could have been easily plead as self-defense. The third shooting becomes a little more ambiguous. She set out to kill a man, the nemesis of detective Mercer. Perhaps she would have just confronted him and not shot him if he hadn’t attacked her? The final shooting happens in the end and once again, the question comes in to play, was it in self-defense—was it a psychological self-defense?
Grade: B+ The film was an exemplary showcase for Jodie Foster’s emotional acting finesse and kept the plot clean yet provocative for the audience to ponder fundamental moral issues pertaining to survival, fear, emotional trauma, and justice.
Director: Neil Jordan. Rated R for intense violence, profanity and some nudity. Running time: 122 minutes. Film’s official website: The Brave One. See the Trailer. Screenplay by: Roderick Taylor, Bruce A. Taylor, and Cynthia Mort. Story by: Roderick Taylor and Bruce A. Taylor.
