The Brave One
Tags: neo noir, realism, murder, violence, flashback, revenge

Plot synopsis:
As radio show host Erica Bain (Jodie Foster) and her fiancé David (Naveen Andrews) are walking their dog at night at Stranger's Gate in New York's Central Park, they are attacked by three violent criminals who film the whole attack on their phones. David dies from his injuries, and Erica, while seriously injured, survives. Angry and traumatized, she attempts to purchase a gun. Terrified and unwilling to wait the month required to obtain a gun legally, she buys a Kahr K9 semi-automatic pistol from a black market gun dealer.
When she stops at a convenience store, a man comes in screaming at the female cashier for not allowing him to see his kids, and shoots her. The killer then hears Erica's cell phone ringer, while attempting to clear out the till, and stalks her in the aisles. Just as the killer is about to find her, Erica is overcome with fear and shoots through the aisles and kills him. On another night, two street thugs harass and threaten passengers in a subway car. The passengers all leave at the next stop except Erica. When the thugs, amazed that she was not threatened enough to leave, take it as a challenge and threaten her with a knife, Erica shoots them both dead. Another night, she attempts to save a prostitute by threatening the brutal pimp with her pistol. When he attempts to run them down with his car in retaliation, she shoots him in the head, causing his car to run over the prostitute. The prostitute is injured, but lives, and is taken to the hospital. All the while, Erica attempts to track down the thugs who killed David.
She strikes up a friendship with Detective Sean Mercer (Terrence Howard), who is investigating the vigilante crimes and who is initially unaware of her role in the deaths. Erica, in trying to find out if the detective is close to solving her case, as well as the vigilante killings, pretends to want to interview Mercer. During the interview, the detective asks her how she pulled it back together after her tragedy. She replies that she did not, and she had to become a different person from the one she was before. They talk several times after. Erica's boss gets her to take calls on her radio show to solicit the public's opinion on the vigilante killings. The various responses almost get her to confess to the killings, but once at the police station, she is unable to bring herself to do so. Mercer tells Erica about a criminal he has been pursuing for a long time, who has allegedly committed several murders, but Mercer is unable to bring him to justice.
When Erica kills the suspect that Detective Mercer had long been after, Mercer comes to suspect her as the killer. He attempts to set a trap for Erica by taking her along with him to interview the prostitute she had saved before, but the prostitute does not let on that she knows Erica. When Mercer is finally able to interview one of the subway car passengers, he gets a description of the probable vigilante, and learns that the person is a female rather than male as previously suspected. When the police bring in Erica to identify one of the suspects in her attack, she recognizes one of them, but does not identify him. After, Mercer meets Erica for coffee, during which he hints that he suspects her as the probable vigilante.
Informed by the police that they found her engagement ring at a pawn shop, she manages to hunt down a name, address and phone number at the pawn shop. With the phone number, she is able to track down one of the attacker's ex-girlfriends, who witnessed the whole attack via a video recording on a cellphone, but is too frightened to rat on them, fearing a similar reprisal. However, she forwards the video recording of Erica's attack to Erica's phone. Erica almost breaks down on seeing the video, then forwards it to detective Mercer. Erica, now armed with positive visual identification of all three attackers, is able to track them down.
At the climax of the film, Erica finds and confronts the thugs responsible for David's murder. She kills two, finding and releasing her dog in the process (which they had stolen and kept after the attack) and struggles with the third. Mercer arrives on the scene just as the third attacker had taken the upper hand and disarmed Erica, holding her in a chokehold, and attempts to arrest him. Erica then retrieves her weapon and attempts to execute the thug. Mercer persuades Erica to lower the gun, but after looking into her begging eyes, hands her his own for her to use a legal weapon to kill the last thug. The thug begs to be arrested, instead, insisting that it is Mercer's job to do so, but then Erica kills the thug, and Mercer insists that Erica should wound him (Mercer) to help frame a story which blames the thugs as the vigilante killers. Mercer places Erica's gun in the last thug's dead hand and Erica leaves the scene, eventually being rejoined by her dog in Central Park.

Review: this movie was much better than i had hoped or expected it to be.it basically turns the vigilante genre on its head,and has a female character as the vigilante.like any vigilante movie,it certainly poses tough questions.it contains some terrific performances in it's two lead characters,Jodi Foster as the vigilante,and Terrance Howard as the cop on her trail.both are outstanding and very credible in their respective roles.Foster really makes you sympathetic to her character and rooting for her,even though you probably shouldn't.Howard's character is also sympathetic,because he has mixed feelings,but has to follow the law.he comes off very convincingly as someone who is conflicted.the movie is well paced and appropriately dark.even before the end of the movie,i thought it was well done,but the ending caught me totally off guard.it elevated the movie a notch.for me,The Brave One is a 9/10.
In "The Brave One," Foster plays a radio talk show host, Erica in New York City and is caught up in the illusion of a safe, happy life.
Few actresses can pull off a role like Erica in film today, but Foster stands alone as one of the best character actors's working today.
She decides to avenge him, and other helpless people, with her own hands.If not for Jodie Foster's presence, I probably wouldn't bother watching "The Brave One" (even though I admire most of Neil Jordan's films).
just desperate and cathartic.Far from being a great movie or intellectually instigating as, say, "Dogville", "The Brave One" is worth seeing for Jodie's performance and for its unapologetic badassery in times of false, excessive morality.
Police detective in New York City is befriended by a female talk-radio hostess who makes acerbic/introspective comments on daily life in the Big Apple; her past as the near-fatal victim of murderous street thugs connects in his mind with the current rash of celebrated vigilante killings...but if his hunch is right, will he be able to arrest someone he has come to admire?
Jodie Foster is very capable in the role of this intense, mourning and benumbed woman who isn't quite sure what her feelings are regarding the low-life she kills, yet the character as conceived is tough for us to reach.
How about being attacked and brutally beaten in Central Park by a gang of thugs, then waking up in hospital only to find out that the love of your life has been buried while you were in a three week long coma.The Brave One takes you on a journey of what it means to loose everything, to become a shadow of yourself, propelled by a very strong performance by Jodi Foster as Erica Bain.
Jodie Foster takes the lead here and I enjoyed seeing a woman in the role of vigilante, refusing to be a victim and fighting back.Foster can be a bit much at times but she was perfect for this role setting out on a mission of revenge after a brutal attack (it's really rough) leaves her fiancé dead and 'Erica' unable to move past the tragedy.
Jodie Foster is a bit like the modern version of Barbara Stanwyck or one of those other powerful female stars that took the role of the woman in society into actions and attitudes that had been the male prerogative since time immemorial.
Jodie Foster delivers an Oscar worthy performance in this astoundingly fresh/novel treatment of what, to some, may seem like old themes."The Brave One" is a far cry from the hackneyed "revenge fantasy" flicks that Charles Bronson made (in)famous.On the surface, some of the elements are similar; but once we get past the surface (which Ms Foster and an excellent supporting cast make easy for the viewer) we are transported into the mind, body and soul of Foster's character to a depth that none of the old "Death Wish" movies ever aspired to, let alone achieved.Yes, powerful emotions are evoked and complex, often contradictory thoughts/ideas are provoked; yet somehow, it is all done with a minimum of coarse manipulation.
(If there had been none at all I would have rated this a ten)."The Brave One" manages to pull off that most rare of cinematic achievements/challenges; it works as high art, profound social/political/psychological/ethical commentary AND delivers an exciting/riveting "can't take your eyes off the screen" theater/drama that elevates the experience of "entertainment" to a level far beyond mere diversion.As someone who is anti death penalty and pro gun control I was surprised, and even uncomfortable, finding myself (along with others) applauding at the end of this marvelous movie.Part of me is tempted to write a long commentary discussing the movie in depth; but that would spoil it for anyone who hasn't already seen it.
We're given no real depth aside from 'she had someone she loved, he died, the police don't pursue it, she gets a gun, yada-yada-yada, she gets somewhat but not really involved with the lead detective' into the character, and so were left with something leftover from past movies: the vigilante code of justice, where taking the power in one's own hands is all there is.
But we're never too sure if Erica is sane or not, if the filmmakers take a position one way or another (that is until the end, which is such a stupid message to take anyway, dog included as overbearing metaphor), while making the New York City of today, which has become significantly safer than, say, twenty years ago, look like you'll get knifed or beaten if you go down just the right alley or just sit alone on a subway car.There could even be a somewhat better movie in the midst of all of this- perhaps just in the undercooked subplot with Terence Howard's detective, who is involved in some custody battle of a child that isn't his and a woman who he's not linked to and a step-father who, I don't know what aside from owning parking lots and being a bad dude- but we're left to a script that's both ham-fisted and disjointed with logic.
It doesn't help that Jordon's style with the camera becomes a little more than insufferable: it's called a stedi-cam for a *reason*, not because it can weave in and out.Ironically, the script and direction become very good, or rather work the best they can under the desired circumstances: when looking at the actual beating scene under the bridge, caught between a video-taped point of view by one of the criminals by the regular film cam in a pace that is perfectly disorienting.
And when Erica first comes back on the air to her radio show, and she freezes up trying to do her old shtick, and speaks out a 'from-the-heart' about how afraid she is- this scene, from Foster's performance, to the clear direction and script, is the best scene in the film.
But unlike Death Wish, a movie that held more ambiguity and never held an answer at the end in a revenge scenario, the path of endless violence just heeds to a message, one that won't be news to anyone who's seen a second of Lifetime movie-of-the-week melodrama.The actors make do with what's given, and in the end it becomes much more frustrating trying to stay with the anticipated, the hackneyed plot turns, and the plain old inexplicable (plus the unintentionally hilarious, like a few expletives shouted by Howard after getting shot in one scene), and the temptation to walk out grows stronger and stronger.
"The Brave One" stars veteran actress Jodie Foster as Erica Bain a New York City woman who works as a radio talk show host, and she seems to be happy and have all comfort in her life including a loving relationship with an emergency room doctor.
Also the film is transformed into a revenge story as Erica becomes a gun loving lady that she carries all the time to protect herself, even though good investigative work is provided from Detective Mercer(Terrence Howard).
The movie tells a story of a woman struggling to recover (physically and psychologically) from a brutal attack and finding a reason to live in the revenge; as said, this vigilante drama turns ludicrous for the implausible and unbelievable ending but, aside from that, the story makes sense overall.
Whether it's an intentional career move, there's no denying that Jodie Foster has been gradually transforming herself into a female action star whose characters always start as ordinary women falling victim and then finding their courage to ultimately give the perpetrators their comeuppance.It's the case here, as Foster plays Erica Bain, the host of a weekend radio show who miraculously survives after being beaten to death by some thugs late one night.
The film is not badly directed and not badly interpreted, but the story...How can murder be justified and rewarded with no penalty even after someone suffers the way Jodie Foster's character does?
This film produced by Joel Silver tells about Erica(Jodie Foster) a successful radio host along with her boyfriend(Naveen Andrews) are walking with their dog at Central Park when are attacked by a gang of hoodlums.
Strong performance by a traumatized Jodie Foster driven violence after his fiancé is killed and she's viciously attacked by degenerate punks.The film bears remarkable resemblance to ¨Death Wish¨ series with Paul Kersey-Charles Bronson, of course the acting by Jodie Foster is much better and the story is more intelligent and thoughtful.Atmospheric musical score by Dario Marinelli and good night-time photography on city streets by Philippe Rousselot.
Want a good vigilante flick go on and rent the 3 listed above Deathwish is your best bet for matching the feel of this movie, taxi driver if you can handle a little reality(by the way Jodi foster is one of the lead characters idk if that helps) and boondocks while not as much of a dramatic classic is funny and inventive..
Well there isn't, so don't waste our time.The relationship between Jodie Foster's Erica, the victim vigilante, and Terrence Howard's Mercer, the detective she befriends, is a very interesting one.
In painting the police force as bureaucratic and inept, it elevates our support level for Erica as well.But we have Detective Mercer (Terrence Howard) who gets acquainted with our leading lady, as the two of them exchange thoughts, philosophies and pain through their friendship, providing some light that there are right and wrong, black and white, but there's always that shade of gray which makes it a constant challenge for those on the side of the law to adhere to following the book, because any deviation might mean a chance for legal exploitation, and the perpetrator walks.Foster's role is nothing unique here, as she had been The Accused before, but it's only in this movie that I realize how successfully she projected vulnerability, given her small frame.
Holding his own against the award winning actress, Terrence Howard didn't have much else to do besides the cursory investigations into a supposed serial killer, being the supplemental detective character in a movie that touches on putting matters into your own hands.Enough suspense was built towards the finale although it degenerated almost into some unsatisfying Western high noon shoot out, and the ending is probably the best that could be mustered out of the story, despite its quite obvious stance toward vigilantism.
A very interesting and shocking story about a woman named Erica Bain, a radio host who's life was good until she and her fiancé get mugged and brutally beaten, he dies and she is left badly wounded, as a result of this, she began to seek justice by her own hand.
The intriguing subject of "The Brave one", added with the determination of Jodie Foster to produce and play in the movie, makes me hope of a sort of intelligent and feminine version of "The Punisher", a kind of violent reflexion on vigilantes and auto justice.
Helas, this movie is just a ridiculous plagiary of Bronson's "Death Wish" series, that hides its emptiness and B-Movie style under a boring psychological study.The victim of an aggression that kills her husband but not her dog, Erica (Jodie Foster) becomes a stranger to herself, buys a gun and rapidly transforms herself in a dark avenger at night.
You care about most of the characters and virtually all acting is really nice; especially Jodie Foster as the frustrated anti-hero and Terrence Howard as the detective who is assigned to crack the case.The sinister atmosphere that this movie generates is exactly the same as in the 1976 classic "Taxi driver" but that is not necessarily a bad thing.
"The Brave One" was a huge disappointment, striking me as a poor amalgam of "Death Wish" and "Play Misty For Me." In any event, star Jody Foster is no female equivalent of either Charles Bronson or Clint Eastwood from those films.
We get the obligatory philosophical debate of the morality of killing thugs who deserve it, minus that crucial law step.But mostly, this is a movie that impresses it self most by some impressive performances from its leads and the fact that, despite whatever our opinion is on the vigilante syndrome, there is something pretty darn neat about watching jerks get shot in the face by Jodie Foster.
This is an enjoyable if predictable revenge movie but it is mainly down to Jodie Foster as Erica Bain that it is lifted slightly above mediocre.She is always good to watch and here she manages to portray the vigilante DJ in a convincing yet vulnerable way.Miss Foster is a fine actress and is up there with Cate Blanchett as one of the very best film actresses around today.Terrence Howard is fine as Detective Mercer and the film is tightly directed by Neil Jordan.It was nice to see Mary Steenburgen again as Erica's boss Carol.I haven't seen her for a while and she shows here that she still has plenty to offer.New York is shown to be a pretty bleak place here but that is within the context of this film which has to show just why Erica feels so unsafe.There are some scenes which are predictable and comparisons with 'Death Wish' are inevitable as this movie is quite similar in a lot of ways.It isn't a classic but it is worth a watch thank's mainly to Jodie..
The experience changes her into a Charles Bronson Death Wish type vigilante avenger.After Foster buys a gun more as a feel good type of protection should she need it she has occasion to use it after she witnesses a murder and then kills the murderer.
What director Neil Jordan does to separate this film from others is that he immerses the audience through the psychology and consequences when one decides to take the law into their own hands, rather then focusing on the killing spree and violence of other similar pictures.In "The Brave One," Foster plays a radio talk show host, Erica in New York City and is caught up in the illusion of a safe, happy life.
Few actresses can pull off a role like Erica in film today, but Foster stands alone as one of the best character actors's working today.The film poses controversial questions to the soul rightness of conducting vengeance on those who impart their control and power on others.
Although vigilante justice seems to be justified at film's end, this is definitely a terrific psychological thriller with Jodie Foster and Terrence Mason producing a fine chemistry between the both of them.After her fiancé is murdered during a Central Park mugging where she falls victim as well, Foster becomes a vigilante when she at first turns up at the wrong places, a store where a husband has shot his wife and in a subway car where she is definitely threatened.The best part of all this is that she has her own radio show and speaks out about what is going on.
Erica Bain's (Foster) fiancée dies from a beating and she prowls the streets of NY hoping for revenge.This is a female version of the Death Wish movies which were better in many ways.
The thing that shocked me, though, was that this movie was not boring for a second, everything was down to Earth and you have complete compassion for the characters.Jodie Foster carried this roll so well, it is honestly some of the best acting I have seen in my life.
Erica Bain (Foster's character) is barely out of her coma and back in clothes after the gruesome park beating that has put her in the hospital and killed her fiancé, when she's buying an illegal handgun, and then the opportunities to off bad guys just fall into her lap one after another, with little in between.Nothing much else happens, except that Erica turns successfully from a nostalgic radio chronicler of the vanishing sights and sounds of New York (whose violence as seen in this film people have noticed makes it appear more the 1970's than the 2000's city) into a talk show host discussing how violence transforms people and whether vigilantes are a good idea.
The Brave One moves into some of this territory as it examines a detective, who gets involved with Jodie Foster's character, and with her killings.
The movie has a taut story line and superb piece of acting by Joddie Foster and Terrence Howard (Detective Mercer), who is, by the way, one of the most underrated actors of Hollywood.
This is a movie where criminals and street thugs get more than they bargained for when radio hostess Erica Bain (Jodie Foster) buys a gun and turns into a vigilante after her fiancé was brutally attacked in the New York streets.Foster gave a credible performance as Bain, mixing in drama and her hunger for revenge, but generating sympathy from the audience after the very unfortunate incident her character experiences in the film.
I love this movie and I put it up there on the list of Jodie Foster's most best stand out performances in her film history.