The Brave One is a simplistic, fantasy vengeance movie. Jodie Foster plays a woman who is brutally assaulted, along with her fiancé, who doesn’t survive the attack. The story follows her as she tries to deal with surviving the event.
I was disappointed because I was expecting something more complex from Jodie Foster. Not that she doesn’t do a good job acting the part. However, in her “prosecution” of the criminals that she meets (with unrealistic frequency), her character has an omniscience which is completely lacking in reality… she (and the viewer) are always completely certain of the guilt of the people she kills. This kind of certainty is rare in real life; and even when it happens, one person’s certainty is no guarantee of their correctness. That’s the reason that vigilantism is generally a bad thing, and we’re better off with our admittedly flawed justice system.
Is it interesting that a woman is playing the role of vigilante? I suppose so. I don’t think I would have bothered watching the movie if it had been about a male vigilante; but in that case, I wouldn’t have been expecting more depth either.
The redeeming feature of this movie is its realistic portrayal of the impact of violent crime on its victims. The manner in which Foster’s character completely changes is very believable, although the rest of the plot is not.
[Edit: After watching the movie, I checked out a few interviews with Jodie Foster about the movie. She compares it to Straw Dogs and Taxi Driver. If I had known that, I would have been expecting something very different... and also might not have bothered to watch. Those two movies are classics, and alas, The Brave One is not.
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