The Brave One

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The Brave One

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The Brave One

Jodie Foster, Terrence Howard, Naveen Andrews, Mary Steenburgen

New York radio host Erica Bain (Jodie Foster) has a life that she loves and a fiancé she adores. All of it is taken from her when a brutal attack leaves Erica badly wounded and her fiancé dead. Unable...( read more  read more... ) to move past the tragedy, Erica begins prowling the city streets at night to track down the men she holds responsible. Her dark pursuit of justice catches the public's attention, and the city is riveted by her anonymous exploits. But with the NYPD desperate to find the culprit and a dogged police detective (Terrence Howard) hot on her trail, she must decide whether her quest for revenge is truly the right path, or if she is becoming the very thing she is trying to stop.

Id: 10639916

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The Brave One Recent Reviews
  • groaningbitch
    August 22, 2009
    groaningbitch
    "the brave one" is jodie foster's latest blockbuster breakthru by some art-house director neil jordan with the helpful upstaging thru charismatic terrence howard. so would "the brave one" be a smash hit? obviously, it sells well but would its crucial viewpoint be taken without be...( read more)ing midled and over-generalized as another "chic with vengence" rehash, especially from male audience? another sort of chic/woman's flicks about strong woman risen up against all the odds just like 40s "mildred pierce"?

    it's a story about a woman and her husband-to-be being almost beaten to death in the central park. she survives but her loved one passes. so angered by the injustice and grievance as well as approaching fright, she purchases a gun for the sense of safety. then some other perilous events drive her into using her lethal pistol into immediate killings which she's obtained great kicks from until she actively sets her path into disposing of the genuine evil men that including her fiancee' murders. therefore, she's become an involuntary vigilante partially forced by circumstance.

    "the brave one" is actually a film noir to its essence but inevitably it over-lingers over the sentimentalities of a woman's traumatic pysche after the catastrophe such as the self-inflicted confession over the radio-broadcastings, and those attributes are easily categorized as "feminist refugee" like 90s "thelma and louis".

    there're four basic elements of film noirs that this flick's contour could ascribe: 1. the dark side of humanity over sex or violence. 2. anarchistic distrust over the law. 3. a vigilante to perform the justice on his own, usually private dick like philip marlowe. 4. the seedy backset of a metropolitan's shadowy retreat like raymond chandler and james m cain's frequent spots of los angels, grendale, pasadena in southern california or danshiel hammet's san fransisco. and "the brave one" is about human's potential appetite of violence being provoked by grand tragedy, and the woman protagonist's distrust over the law is so severe that she has to buy a gun to feel safe, then bang bang bang! she would do justice on her own, a vigilante! and it's about the dark corners of new york as well as her obsession over this super-metropolitan that's well-channeled by her radio-broadcastings...unfortunately these traits have been neglected by the viewers, does it occur to you that audience cannot deem it as film noir just becuz the vigilante protagonist ain't male despite jodie foster has every believable characteristic of a tough guy inside her? or it's too sentimental to be taken as noirish? or it's becuz the director hasn't toyed enough of cinematography of starkness but chose naturalistic rendering instead?

    still, it's very engrossing to put a woman into a spot in this kind of story as gender-reversal. jodie foster has a genuine grit in her and her "tough guy" ain't like uma thurman's cartoonish "kill bill"(a semi-dominatrix vixen in boyish pulp), she conveys real fragility as well as genuine toughness to win the odds. probably she's the only woman actress who could pull off the task of action heroine without taunting her sex appeal. perhaps, a woman in the main spot would bring out some feminine aspects to mellow out such material which is supposed to be harsher, rougher and more expressionistic to be considered noirish. pitifully "the brave one" would still be labelled as "chic flick", "woman's movie" or "feministic refugee".
  • ceWEBrity
    August 17, 2009
    ceWEBrity
    Jodie Foster gives great NPR voice. The rest of the movie is not so successful. Foster herself essays a noble performance, always interesting even when the movie is going to totally improbable narrative places. It's by her virtues that The Brave One is even watchable at all, beca...( read more)use it really doesn't offer anything else. The action isn't all that interesting, though Neil Jordan does have a knack for communicating brutality without making it feel exploitative, and there's not very much of it. I'm inclined to believe that Jordan tried to use this action/violence thematically, but it feels stitched on and sort of unnatural. We already know most of what it tells us: that Erica is frightened, that she is desperate, that she is wounded and angry and unable to help herself. It is by the grace of Foster's inventive performance that the movie avoids massive repetition, but it lands in a completely uninspiring place as a result. Terrence Howard, meanwhile, is a total disaster. Shockingly miscast, he looks and acts babyfaced and overly fresh in a part that calls for someone restricted, beaten down and morally divided. He does not project an ounce of the character's internal conflict, instead content to ride his narrative purpose throughout the movie. He's simply window dressing, an obstacle for Erica to jump over, not a complex human being. The performance is downright lazy.

    Foster hasn't been doing much work lately, presumably opting for the whole motherhood thing, but this is a disappointing return to cinema. We all know that she's never going to find another Silence of the Lambs, but I have faith; surely she can do better than THIS.
  • thmtsang
    July 11, 2009
    thmtsang
    Excellent thriller. Great cast. Erica (Jodie) is a radio presenter who is viciously attacked and her partner is killed in a random attack in the park. She finds herself on a killing spree, defending herself and others in a supermarket, subway and on the streets. She has a police ...( read more)officer (Terrence) on her tail as she hunts down the gang of youths who attacked her.
  • MovieGeek13
    March 19, 2009
    MovieGeek13
    It's Death Sentence, the female version!!! What's funny is that if those punks had tried to mug Sayid, this film would have ended before Act II.
  • gunnarfitz
    January 20, 2009
    gunnarfitz
    Yeah...not so much... Kill Bill Lite!!
  • lobeo
    December 7, 2009
    lobeo
    Not a terrible movie. Not a feel-good movie. They went a tad overboard on the vigilantism but, otherwise an enjoyable movie.
  • trisarahtops22
    November 10, 2009
    trisarahtops22
    Just kind of blah. It didn't really illicit any emotional response and obviously with the story it presented, it should have. The performaces weren't great by either Jodie Foster or Terrence Howard which is unusual. Just a bad script I guess...
  • Topsie11
    November 10, 2009
    Topsie11
    Jodie Foster is absolutely one of the best actresses. a predictable revenge movie..
    Jodie Foster loves playing strong women and no doubt it really suits her..one of the greatest revenge films ever
  • dukeakasmudge
    October 29, 2009
    dukeakasmudge
    It was OK.Death Wish 3 is way better
  • mokeypokeyrocker
    October 24, 2009
    mokeypokeyrocker
    NO STARS!!! i soo call this movie "The Lame One" BOOM BOOM!!
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