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Review #525 of 365
Movie Review of The Brave One (2007) [R] 119 minutes
WIP™ Scale: $13.00
Where Viewed: United Artists Denver Pavilions Stadium 15, Denver, CO
When 1st Seen: 14 September 2007
Time: 12:00 pm
DVD Release Date: 5 February 2008 (click date to purchase or pre-order)
Film's Official Website • Film's Trailer
Soundtrack: Download now from 
- or - order the CD below
Directed by: Neil Jordan (Breakfast on Pluto)
Screenplay by : Roderick Taylor (American Outlaws) • Bruce A. Taylor (At Any Cost) • Cynthia Mort ("Will and Grace") story by Roderick Taylor and Bruce A. Taylor
Featured Cast (Where You Might Remember Him/Her From):
Jodie Foster (Inside Man) • Terrence Howard (The Hunting Party) • Nicky Katt (Planet Terror) • Naveen Andrews (Planet Terror) • Mary Steenburgen (Nobel Son) • Ene Oloja (debut)
Click for 'Review Lite' [a 150-word or less review of this film]
Click to read the spoiler points for The Brave One
1) Death Sentence just came out two weeks ago with a very similar plot.
2) Neil Jordan tends to be brilliant at the artistic parts of his films and characters, but this didn't blend very well with a gritty vigilante film.
3) The film could pass as an excellent character study, but as for a morality play it falters big time with an ending that's nearly impossible to accept as the logical course of action for these characters.
It's too bad because, Jodie Foster delivers one of her most interesting, gutsy, emotionally tangled performances since her Academy Award®-winning performance as Clarice Starling in 1991's The Silence of the Lambs. Terrence Howard proved, yet again, he could be given the role of wallpaper designer for hospitals and he'd turn it into something compelling.
"… Jodie Foster delivers one of her most interesting, gutsy, emotionally tangled performances since her Academy Award®-winning performance as Clarice Starling in 1991's The Silence of the Lambs."
The basics of the story are as follows. Erica Bain (Jodie Foster), acclaimed radio star of her own show, a resonating sonorous experience where she captures the sounds of real New York City and then, like a beat poet, shares her thoughts and perspectives on the changing world around her. Her job is a beautiful, moving, and profoundly interesting one. Somehow, somewhere, she's fallen in very deeply in love with a young physician named David Kirmani (Naveen Andrews). The two are engaged to be married. David wants to elope immediately, while Erica resists such that she can provide her new mother-in-law with the dream wedding she's always wanted to have for her son. Some films take their entirety to depict the depth of love this film creates in under ten between these two. Their playful rapport, their tender moments, their longing glances, are ripened with each fragment of their history of being together that flashes in retrospect when Erica wakes up, finally, after a 3-week coma, to realize that the nightmares of the attack upon her and David in the tunnel under a bridge in Central Park really happened. She was beaten to within an inch of her life, and sadly, David, who had tried to defend them from the three video-taping, gang-banger types, was killed. This horrific tragedy plays out before your eyes in this film in a way that's sure to sicken the stomachs and hearts of those who have managed to keep theirs despite Hollywood's perpetual desensitizing onslaughts. After that, Erica is a mess. She cuts herself off from the world and the person she used to be. She tries to find meaning when obviously there is none to be found. The police claim they'll catch the men responsible, but even if they do, so what? Will their capture make her feel any better? As she grows further and further away from the person she was, she convinces herself the path to new salvation away from her grief and sorrow can be found in the safety of owning a gun, which she buys on the underground market for $1000. Days later, she gets her first opportunity to use it when she witnesses the shooting of a convenience story clerk by her ex-husband in cold blood. He hears her cell phone go off and realizing there was a witness, he seeks her out. He's too late, though. Three bullets later, he's dead on the floor. Called to investigate the shooting are two of New York's finest, Detectives Mercer (Terrence Howard) and Vitale (Nicky Katt). Sort of simultaneously, while introducing Erica and David, the film has been weaving in some scenes of these detectives doing what they do, and the more sensitive side of Detective Mercer who's sole obsession has become catching a wealthy NYC big shot whom he knows to be guilty of all sorts of nasty crimes. Naturally, these two, Bain and Mercer, aren't ships passing in the night, their lives will become inextricably linked as Erica's taste for the power associated with vigilante justice begins to consume her, and she encounters more situations where her willingness to bypass the traditional justice system provides her with the ultimate solution to crime. Her friends and boss and even her mostly menacing landlady notice something's different in her. But, of course, why wouldn't it given what she's been through. They have no idea of the things of which she has become capable.
In Erica Bain both the writers and the actress have created an intense character very deep and profoundly affected by her circumstances. They reveal, perhaps, that the switch between not having the capacity to kill another human being and having it can be flipped on in anyone, and that the line between justice and vigilantism can be crossed without warning by even the most unsuspecting people. The story degrades and fails somewhat, however, when the psychological impact on Erica, formerly an upstanding citizen and now a cold-blooded killer, isn't really explored very well. The story focuses so much on the process and procedures necessary for her to hide her identity that it really doesn't deal very much with the moral questions of her actions. The closest it comes is when her boss at the radio station, Carol (Mary Steenburgen), asks her to open up her show to callers who want to talk about these issues. Some callers praise the vigilante and others are disgusted by him (or is it a her?). The film never goes far enough in showing the potential problems and how our legal and judicial systems have evolved to prevent those problems. To families of victims of violent crime, the laws always seem to favor the criminals, but what of the mistakes that can be made or the rights violated by dictatorial regimes? Do we want revenge to be the driving force behind justice? Do we want one person to serve as prosecutor, judge, and jury? The film does not handle these obvious issues well, and this is to its detriment. This leaves the film with a feeling of being unfinished. For as artistically astute as the film begins, it ends surprisingly with a shocker, but also a dubious message. Does the film condone vigilantism? Does it suggest that there is a possible sense of satisfaction that can be brought about with revenge killing? Isn't this the sort of preposterous logic that we so revile in gang warfare? It's easy to set this story up, and then to say it doesn't matter, it is what it is. The flaw, however, comes in that a film cannot set out on more artistically and philosophically solid plane and then fail to address these concerns in a more provocative way.
Jodie Foster as Erica Bain | Naveen Andrews as David Kirmani |
Terrence Howard as Detective Mercer | Erica Bain has her mark |
Lovebirds engaged to be married | Jodie Foster and Mary Steenburgen |
The two faces… | of Erica Bain |
Click for 'Review Lite' [a 150-word review of this film]
Other Projects Featuring The Brave One (2007)
Cast Members
Jodie Foster
• Terrence Howard • Nicky KattNaveen Andrews
• Mary Steenburgen • Ene OlojaDirector
Neil Jordan
Writers
Roderick Taylor
• Bruce A. Taylor • Cynthia Mort
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