Earlier this month, Hollywood treated audiences to "Shoot 'Em Up," an ultra-violent look at what can happen when Clive Owen gets the perfect role and allows Paul Giamatti to join him in Valhalla forever.
While this film paid fleeting lip service to the horrors of guns and the necessity of gun control, "The Brave One" discusses problems stemming from the proliferation of firearms at length. It is, however, admittedly difficult to find an armed Jodie Foster as entertaining as Clive Owen wielding a carrot.
Jodie Foster stars as Erica Bain, a woman whose fianc?© David Kirmani (played by "Lost's" Naveen Andrews) is murdered. While strolling through Central Park, a group violently attacks the couple for apparently no reason. The band kills Kirmani and puts Bain in a coma for several weeks. Afterwards, Bain struggles with her memories of the experience, has trouble leaving her apartment and ultimately buys a gun to help her come to grips with the life-changing experience.
She spends some time toting it around and after various other disturbing encounters, becomes a New York City vigilante. Meanwhile, Terrence Howard as the curious Detective Mercer hangs out along the edges of her storyline, similar to Diane Keaton in "The Godfather" (1972), always ready to pop in and cause more problems for the anti-hero.
It is worth noting immediately that Jodie Foster is terrific as ever. She spends the entire movie getting the audience to really like her and root for her, even as she's doing things that most would agree garner a "don't try this at home" warning.
Her cat-and-mouse game with Terrence Howard is somewhat exciting and certainly engaging, although it is frustrating that the two never get to come together in the biological sense. This is much like a chaste "Thomas Crown Affair" (1999) up to and including an unsatisfying conclusion.
Frankly, had this and the "Affair" switched endings (no need to even re-shoot), they each would have improved by leaps and bounds. In terms of theme, the movie strongly parallels 2003's "In the Cut." Both movies are frank about the fact that women are not safe in modern day America. Jodie Foster moves dreamily from set piece to set piece.
In all of the movies, women are made sexual targets of acts of violence, usually just due to having bad enough luck to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. The movie seems to assert that unarmed women are walking targets.
"The Brave One" also seems to dislike the idea of using guns at all, even as a woman's primary means of defense. Jodie Foster buys the gun to make herself feel safe to walk the streets, then eventually, á l? "Macbeth," gets caught up in the killing power it gives her. Imagine seeing "Macbeth" with guns. How long would that take, 20 minutes?
She spends the whole movie being racked with guilt over what she continues to do, and the movie seems to have an opinion on justice, but the last five minutes end a lot like "Double Jeopardy" (1999) which is to say, disappointingly facile.
Written and directed by Neil Jordan, "The Brave One," like many of his other movies, depends heavily on strong performances from the actors. Jodie Foster's performance is definitely strong enough to carry the film and Terrence Howard would be charming even if he wore a burlap sack over his head. "The Brave One" is thought provoking and intense, and, if it weren't for the ending, would be one of the stronger movies to come out this year.
