Jodie Foster gives one of the best performances of the year in The Brave One, although the film itself is not quite her equal. Some aspects of the film work tremendously well (the fleshing out of Foster's character), but others do not (some underdevelopment, a tendency to be somewhat overly "preachy"). Despite this, Foster, with assistance from an excellent turn by Terrence Howard in a supporting role, breathes life and depth into the film. Her Erica is extremely complex and her pain is heartbreakingly real. It's a rather unconventional thriller, but that tends to work to its advantage. Barring a few problems, Foster's dynamic performance helps to make The Brave One a satisfying experience. B

THE BRAVE ONE (2007)

I thought "The Brave One" looked really good, but this revenge thriller/drama delivers more than I ever could have expected. Jodie Foster is fantastic, delivering the best performance I've seen so far this year, and easily one of her best performances ever (it's between this and Silence of The Lambs). It's also one of her best films. The brief relationship between her and her lover is well-handed and nice, and the scenes with her taking out scum are riveting. Her character is easy to root for. I had no problem with her actions. I don't believe things are black and white, good or bad. Things aren't so simple and cut and paste. I believe there's a grey area. I condoned her character's actions.

"The Brave One" is the best film I've seen yet this year. Jodie Foster deserves an Oscar nomination for sure, and there's a good chance she'll get one. This is an excellent, crowd-pleasing movie. I loved the very ending too. I will recommend this one to everyone I know.

Grade: 9/10 (A-)

there's a shot where she;s laying in a cemetery at night with a train in the background that's really beautiful and is the only moment in the entire film that really rang true for me.

I really loved this film. I'd rank it beneath Panic Room but miles ahead of Flightplan, which I still did like a good deal. Jodie gives a wonderful performance, the best of the year so far that I've seen. I really wish she would work more. Some things kinda work against it, like Erica constantly finding bad people worth killing just by chance, but it's all good.

out of

I'd agree completely.

I've got mixed feelings on this one that I need to sort out still... but to those considering seeing it: do. Jodie Foster's performance is fantastic.

That was one of my favorite moments too. It was gorgeous. I also loved the scene in the bathroom at the bar with the water dripping down her face.

Howard and Foster give very good performances. Yet, I didn't feel a single thing for any of the characters. I sat there stone faced. You can tell this is a well made film, and the performances are good, yet I didn't care. It's kind of instantly forgettable.

C+

EDIT

This film is going to be really hard for me to write a mini-review on, so please bare with me. There were moments where I really loved this film. The first thirty or so minutes come to mind. I thought they were beautiful and the relationship between the two characters were perfect. Then, when Erica (Jodie Foster) is awoken from her coma, it's like we're watching a completely different movie. This is where it turns into a repetitive movie that has far too many coincidences (much like 2005's Oscar winning film Crash) to handle. The performances in it are just fine, but with such a weak screenplay, it's really hard to notice and I honestly think Jodie Foster, while quite good, was a bit overrated in this. I also had insane problems with the hypocritical, absolutely stupid ending. I'm just not at all impressed with this movie.

6/10 (B-)

I REALLY want to know what you thought. Must be foul. This is difficult for me to judge.... very, very conflicted over my overall assessment.

Naah I was just asking Jmart was he going doing a full review, then noticed it was already done by somebody on the mainpage.

The Brave One isn't out at us till next weekend.

I'm thinking of lowering my grade to a 6/10 (C+). This movie was just so lame.

I'll post a full review in the thread because I'm writing one for my college paper. I don't know how I'm going to do it, because my thoughts really don't expand out past those two lines I wrote, but I somehow have to extend that into at least four paragraphs. However, if I had reviewed a film this past week for the site, it probably would've been Mr. Woodcock. The only reason why I'm writing this for my college paper, is because it'll have a longer shelf life (The paper comes out a week after I write a review) thanks to the possible Oscar chances for Jodie Foster.

The only reason why I didn't review anything this past weekend was because I was going away for the weekend for my birthday, and I didn't know what my schedule was going to be like or what internet access I was going to have.

I realized as I was writing this, I liked the film even less. Really, the only reason to see this film is because of Foster and Howard. Who would've thought that I'd end up liking Death Sentence more than this? That film was at least interesting.
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When I go see a movie, I expect one thing from that film – to be entertained. I can very much appreciate the craft of making the film, both behind and in front of the camera, but I just want to be entertained. Despite the fact that there is some very good work going on here, the final product just isn’t very interesting.

Erica Bain is the host of a local radio show in New York that deals with the sounds of the city. What she does is she goes around the city with a microphone and recorder in hand and records the sounds of the city so she can later play them back on her show, with some added commentary. When she’s not on the radio, she has a personal life. She goes to art galleries and spends time with her fiancée. One night, she and her fiancée go for a walk in Central Park with their dog. Thanks to a runaway bouncy ball they were toying the dog with, they find themselves on an unlit path out of the way. There they are mugged and beaten. Erica ends up in a coma for three weeks. Her fiancée dies. The dog is taken.

When Erica does wake up, she realizes she is stuck with the fact that things will never be the same. Her fiancée isn’t coming back. Her dog isn’t coming back. Life as she knew it, is not coming back. She has lost her innocence – her cozy lifestyle. Since all of this is gone and she no longer feels safe, she buys a gun. Not too long after that, she finds herself inside a convenient store that’s being held up over a domestic dispute. The clerk’s ex comes in and guns her down all while Erica is in the back of the store. Her cellphone rings. In order to defend herself, and to take the law into her own hands, she guns him down, steals the security tape and walks away. From here on out, she is no longer Erica. With her first killing, she has now become a different person.

As I mentioned before, The Brave One is a well-made film. The performances are solid, especially from Jodie Foster and Terrence Howard, and the cinematography is beautiful – there are some shots in this film that will impress you. That saying, the script is sub-par at best. It tries to be different, and it fails.

First, while the film’s central character is Erica and it remains that way, we have Terrence Howard as Detective Mercer, who is called on to find who is suddenly killing these people. Despite the fact that he gives a very good performance, I, in one line, summed up what is role in the film should’ve been. Instead, he is a three-dimensional character, with a back-story involving an ex-wife, and some crooked guy he’s after, and it just doesn’t work. It also doesn’t help that he has a sidekick who keeps making jokes that don’t fit anywhere near the tone of the movie. I know the film is trying to be light in certain places to balance the tone of the film, but it doesn’t work and feels out of place.

When Mercer is a detective, it works. Every other time, it does not. This includes a mutual relationship where Erica (As the radio host) develops a mutual friendship with him. Despite the fact that these are two very talented actors who have good chemistry with one another, there’s something about it that doesn’t quite work. It’s just not interesting.

Then we have Erica. The scenes where she is dealing with the mugging towards the middle part of the film work quite well. The scenes that take place after her first killing, not so much. I mentioned the relationship with detective Mercer. However, for some inexplicable reason, despite the fact that she now kills bad guys, it takes her until the final 15 minutes of the film to seek revenge on the people who mugged her and killed her fiancée. It’s an afterthought! I guess Erica had to be “ready” to face them.

Finally there’s the film’s central question; is vigilantism good or bad? Here’s an idea that’s been explored many times before and has been handled well. Up to a certain point, it’s handled well here. Then we are beaten over the head with a song that plays in the final minutes of the film that features the lyrics, “Was it worth it?” Are you kidding me? That’s the best they could come up with? Whatever happened to the idea of letting the viewer decide?

So there you have it. Even though the performances are very good, and make the film better than it really is, I just can’t recommend the film. At the end of the film, I just sat there stone-faced. I realized I could not have cared less as to what happened to these characters (Which is ironic since the performances are good). To put it simply, the film is not interesting, or worth seeing in theaters.

C

So yeah, this is a real piece of shit.

Strictly a member of the Haggis school of filmmaking, The Brave One positively concuss' the audience by the time it's done beating on their collective head, only to totally stomp on its ham-fisted, forced "morality" with a ridiculous final fifteen minutes that is far more offensive than anything found in the superior revenge pic from this year, Death Sentence. You won't find a more dour, lifeless, self-important, self-serving movie this year, and thank god for that. A tour de force of hypocrisy, white bread blandness, and convenient narrative points, The Brave One is only "commendable" for featuring one of the most obtuse and grotesque correlations of sex and violence I've ever seen.

C+

Apart from an incredible performance by Jodie Foster, the film is uneventful and lacks any emotional impact.

B/B-


For most of its running time, the movie's more complex than most people give it due for. But when it comes to its end, it just left me with some open questions about what this movie was actually trying to say. Was it that we all are just human and do things that we know are wrong, but we can't help that? Or is it that lynching is wrong, but as long as the real baddies are offed it's okay (of course our heroine still remains tormented after her deeds)?! I'm not sure what the film was trying to tell and I think that the director wasn't so sure of that either. The ending with Howard giving Foster the gun just seemed a bit silly to me and more of a case in whicn to keep the audiences satisfied the baddie must be killed on-screen...almost as if the screenwriter/director chickened out at the last moment.

Everything leading up to it was pretty good, though. Foster does a formidable job here (God, last year had many many great performances!), though it's not one of her very best. Terrence Howard proves once again that he's one of the best newer actors around, I just wish his character had been fleshed out a bit more. It seems to be too coincidental that Erica just kept running into sinister folks that she ended up killing, but let's not forget that she likely chose to go to places where things like these are more likely to happen (subconsciously maybe). I think the story of her being torn between the impulse of killing criminals and between her being tormented since she feels that what she's doing is wrong was pretty well-done...well, up until the very end, as I said. With a better ending, this really could have been a very fine film, as it is, it is still a fascinating watch that loses a lot of its credibility at the end.