The Brave One

Posted by Robert Fure (robert@filmschoolrejects.com) on September 14, 2007

Ah The Brave One. Never has a movie made me lose interest so fast but never has a movie managed to break me back in… and then throw me back out. And bring me back in. The first 15 minutes of The Brave One did not work for me. We get Foster doing some narration basically and then lots of “love” stuff to establish how much “love” she feels and all that jazz. I was ready to call it a day and go to sleep right in my cushy seat. But I didn’t and I reaped some reward. First, the synopsis.

The Brave One follows Erica (Jodie Foster), a radio personality who listens to, talks about, and records the sounds of New York when all of a sudden her life got flipped upside down. (Sorry, I just had to do a “Fresh Prince” reference!) She’s deeply in love, so we’re told, with her fiancee David (Naveen Andrews) and they’re planning on getting married quite soon. However, on a late night walk through the park they’re assaulted by a gang leaving David dead and Erica broken and vengeful.

She embarks on a one woman course of revenge stirring up a media storm about “vigilante justice” and catching the eye of Detective Mercer (Terrence Howard) who seems to be approximately “ok” at his job of being an officer. Now, the story tries to be much more than it is and in doing so, I felt, failed. It wants to take you on this emotional journey, follow this broken woman, relate to her, understand her rage. And then the movie wants to be bad ass revenge flick. BANG BANG, Who’s the bitch now type of thing. Therein lies both the problem and the saving grace.

I really enjoyed the vengeance parts overall. Sure again a regular person turns into an exceptionally good and deadly shot despite never having owned a gun before, but that’s par for the course. At least she didn’t shave her head. The initial beating is very brutal and well filmed and the other bits of murder and mayhem are tight. I enjoyed approximately 45% of this movie.

There was another 45% of the film that I hated. No offense Naveen, but you were not right for this role. The couple of David and Erica do not play well with each other. At no point did I ever believe these two people actually liked each other. It was just bad casting choice. I didn’t buy it for a minute. The other things I didn’t enjoy were all the moments of her alone, debating and dealing with her actions. It was just boring. It was semi-preachy. It was poorly executed via her on-air narratives or plain voice overs. I didn’t like it one bit.

Now you’ll see, 45+45= 90. There was 10% of the movie I didn’t even notice. Just blah blah blah who cares. I hated half, loved half, didn’t care about the stuff on the sides. I will say, however, that Nicky Katt, while only on screen for maybe 8 minutes, owns his character and was hilarious and fun to watch. If he wasn’t there it would have shifted the balance of power more to the “didn’t enjoy it” side.

So. Should you see it? Honestly, I’d pass in the theaters. I don’t think it’s worth $12. But on DVD, it might be worth a rental. There are a lot of good scenes in here, tragically there is just no good movie. The film faltered between an examination of a woman and a revenge film. If it would have picked a straight path, it probably would have done better. The revenge bits were great, if this were an exploitation or genre film, it’d blow gaskets. Too bad they cut all that other stuff in there.

The Upside: Well directed, good bits of vengeance.

The Downside: Absolutely without a doubt HATED every scene that featured Foster and Andrews together, except the beating, and I guess that says something about me.

On the Side: Jodie Foster, Neil Jordan, and Philippe Rousselot all are Academy Award Winners and worked on this film. Terrence Howard and Dario Marianelli are both Academy Award Nominees.

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