The Brave One
First, be forewarned: The Brave One is hard to watch. The violence is not stylized, it's very real, and the film is more a drama than an action movie. The first 15 minutes, in particular, are likely going to turn your stomach a little bit.
That being said, Jodie Foster's character in the film, Erica Bain, is a rare example of an action heroine.
At the beginning of the movie, Erica and her boyfriend, David (played by Lost's Naveen Andrews), along with their dog (a gorgeous Malinois) are attacked in Central Park. Erica and David are beaten very badly, and David dies. When Erica returns home (after recovering from her injuries), she is paralyzed by fear. This problem is compounded by the blasé attitude of the police investigating her case. Scared, Erica buys an (illegal) handgun.
Not long after she buys her gun, Erica witnesses a murder in a convenience store. When her cell phone ringing alerts the killer to presence and he comes after her, she shoots and kills him, then removes the tape from the security monitor and flees the scene. This killing is followed by another one, then another. Erica moves from happening upon her victims (all of whom are criminals and scumbags of one sort or another) to seeking them out.
In one memorable scene, she forgoes the use of her gun and beats a wife-killing human-and-drug running sociopath to death with a crowbar. And, of course, her killing streak culminates with her finding and executing the three men who attacked her and David in the park (and getting her dog back).
The other major character in the film is police Detective Mercer (Terrence Howard). Erica befriends him while he is investigating the murders she is committing. The contrast between violent vigilante Erica and calm and law-abiding Mercer represents a neat reversal of what a moviegoer expects to see from a white woman and a black man, which is a major strength of the film.
The character of Erica, reacting to being the victim of violence with perpetrating violence of her own, is nothing new (in fact, we see it all the time, in films from Taxi Driver to A Man Apart). However, it is definitely new to see this role taken up by a woman. At one point in the film, a police officer remarks that the vigilante killer couldn't be a woman, as women "kill the kids, the boyfriend, the husband" rather than meeting out vigilante justice in a calculated manner. Erica proves this theory wrong, serving as an argument that a woman's capacity for violence is not limited to interpersonal drama, but can, in fact, be just as far-reaching as a man's. Though there is a gendered element to the murders Erica commits (she asks one of her original attackers "now who's the bitch?" before killing him), for the most part she is not so much an avenging-if-deranged woman (a la Charlize Theron's Aileen Wuornos in Monster) as simply an avenger. I give the film full Heroine Content marks for that, as well as for the cold and believable rage that Jodie Foster instills in her character. Watching the movie I couldn't help but think back to Foster's first major film, Taxi Driver, another New York movie in which Foster plays not the avenging but the avenged, a consummate victim. At 45, Foster has come a long way.
The other stunning reversal in the film is the one director Neil Jordan creates with the film-making. In scene after scene, small, blond Erica is positioned as the victim in a creepy New York confrontation (first in the park, then in the convenience store, then on the subway, then in the backseat of a car, then on the roof of a parking garage), but after the assault on her in the park, each scene shows her pushing through the moment when she could be victimized and becoming the aggressor. Being stalked around the convenience store, she shoots through a row of glass bottles; assaulted on the roof of a parking garage, she buries a crowbar in her assailant's head. In each scene, there is a moment when the viewer thinks that Erica might this time be in trouble herself, and each time she comes out the victor.
The film also does well with race. It presents a multiracial cast of both "good guys" and "bad guys" fitting for a film taking place in New York. Erica's boyfriend David is played by a British-Indian actor. Detective Mercer is African-American. Erica's victims comprise two African-American men, three Hispanic men, and three white men. The supporting female characters, too, are racially mixed, including Mercer's attorney ex-wife (African-American), Erica's boss (white), the kidnapped prostitute Erica liberates (Hispanic), and Erica's helpful and wise neighbor, who tells her that everyone has the capacity to kill if pushed too far (Nigerian).
I am giving The Brave One four stars. It's not an easy film to watch, but it's a very well made one, and Jodie Foster's Erica Bain is one of the more revolutionary action heroines I've ever seen.
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Have you seen the film "Ms. 45"? It also has a female vigilante theme, although it seems to be more an examination of gender issues than it is an action thriller.
I haven't, I will check it out!
Thanks for reviewing this movie. I'm going to have to check it out myself. The reversals of so many stereotypes seem so very interesting.
I really enjoyed this review. It makes me think that the film deserves more than all the terrible reviews it got when it came out.
I was totally with you until the second-to-last sentence, actually. The wise old black woman who gives the white star critical character-advancing information (aka the Magical Negro) is one of my Least Favorite Stereotypes Ever. From your description it sounds like the Nigerian neighbor fits squarely into the mold. Does it?
Not really...she's not old, for one thing, and she's kind of curt and seems political. She's definitely not a "Mammy" figure.
Mammy Magical Negro are two different archetypes, but it sounds like the character may have avoided both.
A warning about "Ms. 45" is that it is rape of the lead female character that sets her vigilantism in motion. It's not prolonged or especially graphic, but it would definitely trigger distress in sensitive viewers.
I loved it until the ending - which felt to me like it negated just about everything you pointed out was great about the movie.
I am an African American woman, and a feminist. This review is a joke, and this web site is a joke. This web site is about celebrating white women as heroic figures and has no understanding of women of color or of the racial politics of American media.
Whoever wrote this review is too shallow to realize how racist The Brave One is. The most violent and senseless criminals are all Black or Latino and invoke centuries-old stereotypes of irrational, bestial, over-sexed men of color. But the fool who wrote this review has no knowledge of racism or the racial politics of film history, and therefore, thinks that throwing in some good people of color makes the racism alright, just as long as the white lady is a heroine.
The creator of this website needs to remove their claim that they are anti-racist. She simply does not understand racial politics enough to make this claim. I am disappointed and disgusted by this film and this web site, which endorses it.
One more problem. The lead character in this film is not meant to be a heroine. The film, along with Jodie Foster's interviews, make clear that this film is a critique of violence and what it does to all perpetrators regardless of their moral position. The film rejects the notion that Erica is a heroine, but the reviewer is too shallow to reognize this.
One last point. The person who writes these reviews needs to run her opinion by some of her friends of color before assuming that something isn't racist. Also, please read "Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack" by Peggy McIntosh. It's an article about racial privilege. The creator of this web site needs a better education about race and privilege.
Thank you for your comments. They definitely give me a lot to think about, and I will continue to think about them as I continue with my reviews.
I have, BTW, read "Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack."