This past week Marcia and I watched “The Brave One” starring Jodi Foster and Terrence Howard. It happened to be on Howard’s 39th birthday.
The movie centers on Erica Bain (Foster), a public radio show host in New York. Her and her fiancé David go to walk their dog in the park one evening, and are brutally attacked. Erica is knocked unconscious, only to wake up in the hospital weeks (?) later to find out that not only was David killed, but his family has already had his funeral. Erica finds it hard to move on, and ends up illegally buying a gun to protect herself. Then one evening while in a convenience store, she witnesses a murder. When the murderer realizes Erica is there, he stalks her only to have Erica kill him first. From there, Erica becomes another person, a vigilante against those committing violent crimes. Meanwhile, she befriends Detective Mercer (Howard) who is actually working the cases of Erica’s murders, and helping out with finding her and David’s original attackers.
Off the top of my head, it seems that Foster plays a lot of similar roles in her movies. Her characters are strong women, yet still real enough to show the emotional effects of personal tragedies and trying to get through them. Erica Bain falls into that category. Even with her strength in facing these criminals, and the immense feelings that are probably needed to be able to kill a human, she is falling apart at the seems, barely hanging onto her sanity, and so badly wanting to, and return to her former life.
Howard also did a very good job bringing along another character with flaws, trying to hold together his life while being successful on the job. It would have been nice to see more of his character, but obviously the story was more about Erica.
Some of the situations seemed a little ridiculous in what she got away with. I would think that one particular scene would have been witnessed by more people. It seemed conveniently empty that day on the subway and in the station. And the idea of taking revenge out on those is an old story, and can turn into a strictly violent movie. But given the depths of what we see in Erica and even Detective Mercer, it makes it much more then an action thriller.
I was really drawn to this movie by the trailers I had seen, and was glad we took the time to watch it. It’s not the greatest film I have seen, and certainly not in a genre/category that I find myself wanting to watch. But it gave much more then the usual fare.
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