Staring Jodie Foster, The Brave One is a story about a gal in New York who is victimized by a violent mugging that leaves her fiance dead, and herself almost dead.
Awaking from a coma some time later, she attempts to regain her life and ends up turning vigilante, a la Charles Bronson in Death Wish I thru XX (or however many of them he made.) In a promotional interview I read, Foster claimed it was the best movie she's done in years. Sounded like a winner to me, so I went for it.
Bad move on my part.
This film could have been so much more. Fine performances by the cast. Excellent , and wasted, performance by Miss Foster. But not put together well at all.
The first hour really sucked. It was slow and boring, waaaay too much soul searching and emoting. I almost got up and left, it was that bad. Then I remembered I spent $10.50 to see this turkey, and was determined to see it through.
At about the half-way point of the movie, with all the dramatic chickish stuff out of the way, the pace began to pick up and actually started to get interesting. Tis a pity a guy had to pay full price to see half a flick.
Eventually, Miss Foster gets around to killing some bad guys, but for some goofy- Hollywood-dramatic reason is feeling guilty about it all. I'm thinkin "Hey Lady, that thug just threatened to fuck you with a knife on the subway. What you feeling guilty about?"
Some other problems with the film:
It's rather unlikely that a gal the size of Jodie Foster's skinny character, who's never held a gun before, is going to be able to handle a 9mm with such ease.
Also, considering the level of damage done to this gal's face with a steel pipe during her beat down, she was surprisingly scar free.
I always thought Jodie Foster was better than this, but to describe The Brave One as "Death Wish with Boobs" is a disservice to Death Wish,for the ultra low class Bronson movies were far superior.
My advice: rent a real Death Wish movie.
Or,if you really have to see this film, show up an hour late. You won't be missing anything.
6 comments:
I've shot a 9mm before... I'm 5 ft and was probably about 110 lbs at the time. After that I began to scoff at the movies showing anyone holding a pistol with one hand and shooting. The 9 was enough of a kick for me, I shot a 44 once. Nearly knocked me on my ass.
I just got back from "3:10 to Yuma". It's a really good movie and you should go see it. It's a very well done movie from the 1st min to the last.
pity. I'd heard her acting was going to be good, and also had hopes for the movie.
jade: even cops use both hands with a 9mm.
mercy: seen it. havent reviewed here,though. actually, its in a draft that i'm not happy with publishing.
yes, its a good film.
kr: she's promoting it as some intellectual art film. but it just doent pass muster. lots of artistic qualities. bad product.
death wish was 10x better at its mission. and death wish was poor film making.
Yeah, I was taught to shoot by a guy who became a cop... he was very particular about how I held the gun with TWO HANDS, etc... to this day I hold my pellet gun the same way, it just doesn't feel right otherwise.
Two words, Gino: sunk cost ;)
I read a review of the movie that didn't like it too well, and I really liked the end of it. The reviewer talked about a woman s/he knew or talked to or something, whose daughter was brutally murdered and the cretins who did it were caught. The woman pleaded for mercy for the killer(s), because what good would more killing do? The tie-in for the reviewer was that *this* woman was "the brave one."
Which, I gotta say, I am a regular church-goer and I know my Bible pretty well. But I don't know if I could forgive something like that.
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