The Brave One

Get to know me even a little and you will figure out pretty quickly that I’ll pretty much see any movie. I’ll go see a movie I don’t expect to like (Nacho Libre). I’ll go see a movie I know I’ll hate (All three Saw films, and yes I’ll probably see the fourth film). I swore after seeing Hostel that if Hostel 2 was made that I would stay far away from it, but yeah I saw Hostel 2. But there are movies that I have never seen for a reason as simple as the fact that the preview did nothing more than made me shrug and say eh.

The Brave One was a preview that didn’t inspire anything. For one thing I saw the preview at the same time I saw a preview for the new Kevin Bacon film and suddenly I figured revenge films were this year’s Disaster flick (think Deep Impact/Armageddon). Plus Jodie Foster pretty much under whelmed me in her last outing. So in truth I had no plans to see it. Until someone let me know that student affairs office had arranged for any student to see a free movie at a local theater and this movie idiot can’t pass up free.

Jodie Foster is Erica Bain, a radio personality who tells anecdotal stories about New York. She’s in a loving relationship with Naveen Andrews. One night while walking their dog, they are attacked, Foster’s fiancé is killed and she is left emotionally scarred. Eventually in her struggle to cope with her trauma, she becomes a vigilante killer. I don’t feel like I’ve revealed anything here that the preview didn’t. In any event, it is quickly apparent that the film isn’t really about the killings. It really is about much more, post traumatic stress, the at times impotence of justice and so on.

At first the film felt a bit hard to get into. The characterization a bit weak especially the relationship but it grew on me. It isn’t unproblematic. There is a bizarre choice to contrast brutal violence with extreme intimacy early in the film which seemed to serve no purpose in my opinion. There is also an extreme leap between nearly agoraphobic traumatic shock to the stolid determination that a gun will keep her safe. But that being said once that is out of the way, the film settles into a bizarre mix of thriller, police procedural and analysis of bruised psyches.

Now the theater was filled with a few obnoxious patrons who were cheering the action sequences, which is an odd reaction to a film that seems to want to inspire discussion about the issues it raises. And yet will only resonate with these viewers as really fun action sequences. The debate might be superficial and bit forced but it definitely feels a bit heavy handed on that front and despite all that they still missed it. But that isn’t what really makes the movie, what makes the film is the relationship of its two main characters.

At its core are two superb performances by Foster and Terrence Howard as the cop who is investigating the vigilante murders. They form a bizarrely wounded friendship, discussing loss, crime and justice. There is one particularly powerful scene late in the movie at a diner. It involves revelations, call backs to earlier conversations and a very fantastic sense of finality. This leads into a fast paced finale that promises to make this go down as a fantastic film. And then.

I really, really wish there wasn’t an and then. But there is. Does a character do something one would never expect him/her to do? Unfortunately. Does the climax of the film seem to contradict the power of the aforementioned diner scene? Sadly, yes. If not for the ending to this movie, this very well might have been one of my top five favorites of the year, it may still make top ten but it is just so disappointing of an ending that I can almost not forgive it.

Still it’s a film definitely worth seeing, especially for that diner scene (can you tell I really liked the diner scene?). But maybe with my warning you don’t put much faith in a fantastic ending. Or maybe you walk out of the theater at just the right moment. You’ll know it when it happens and that is the time to run. Or maybe you stay and disagree with me but I wish it could have delivered a better ending.