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Review: The Brave One
This week my movie was The Brave One. Jodie Foster is one of my favourite actresses, and I'm not likely to hate a film with her in it. I approached this one with some trepidation, having read some unflattering reviews. However, with some reservations, I really enjoyed this movie. I wouldn't recommend it to everyone: it is very violent, and morally ambiguous, but both of these can be strengths if you're someone who enjoys this type of film.
One thing I should say: because of the subject matter, my approach to this film is more analytical than emotional. It's a very visceral story, so my approach is, well, more distant than it should be.
Jodie Foster plays Erica Bain, a radio journalist who survives a violent attack in what I think was meant to be Central Park. Her fiance is killed and she is comatose for several weeks but eventually makes a full recovery...physically, at least. Emotionally, it's another story: she becomes agorophobic, and when she does venture out she's consumed by fear as well as grief for her dead lover. Eventually, she buys herself a gun, and shortly afterward is forced to use it in self-defence. She becomes a vigilante, walking the streets and riding the subway, killing the bad guys who cross her path.
A number of things struck me about this one. The initial attack is the most violent scene in the film. Erica and her fiance are attacked by several men. One of them films the whole thing on his cell phone, and the movie switches between normal film and blurry cell-phone footage, so that the very worst of the attack you don't see clearly, but it's all the more shocking because of what you do see: this cold-blooded thug filming a murder.
I was relieved that the attack wasn't sexual - there's an undercurrent, but the attack is violence, murder, not rape. Yet later, Erica's flashbacks of the attack are interspersed with flashbacks of her making love with her fiance. I found that extremely uncomfortable. Sure I get the sex/death connection, but this seemed to be presenting the violence as something to turn the viewer on. It was exploitative and unnecessary.
The other thing that struck me was the psychological realism of Erica as a killer. I'm not sure if her first kill is realistic; not sure because I've certainly never been there. It's self-defence, that first kill. She's in a late-night store when a man bursts in yelling at the (female) cashier. He kills her, and Erica tries to hide but he realises someone is there. It's very clear that he's going to kill her, too: she's a witness. So there's nothing morally ambiguous about her decision to shoot. What I'm not certain about is her reaction afterward. Because instead of panicking, or running she calmly gets up, steals the tape from the store's security camera, wipes off her fingerprints and walks away. I don't find that entirely believable, considering that only days before it had been a struggle for her to even get past her front door, and in a way the whole plot rests on that moment. But the pace of events picks up at that point, so the viewer isn't given much time to pick at the plot hole and the portrayal of her actions after that is consistent, and (I thought) very reaistic.
After the first time, she kills deliberately. Her initial targets are men who put themselves in her way: they approach her. Later she picks her targets in advance and plans her murders more carefully. I said earlier that she's a vigilante; that's not accurate. She's a serial killer, I believe, because she does two things that are "typical" of serial killers: she keeps trophies from her kills, and she tries to get close to the police investigation.
Trophies: Erica is a radio journalist. The first time we see her she's walking the streets of New York, recording the sounds of everyday life. She radio show is a "slice of life" kinda deal, a commentary on what life in New York is like. She carries her mike and recording equipment everywhere and when she starts killing people, she records each incident, playing them back later, in private.
Seeing cops on the scene after her second kill, she approaches the detective in charge, asking for an interview. Perhaps it's an attempt to explain her presence as she's not the only reporter on the scene, but she gets involved with the cop as time goes on. And she uses her radio show to talk about the murders in the same way some serial killers collect press cuttings.
It takes way too long for the cop to get suspicious of her. Sorry, but if I can recognise her behaviour as fitting a profile, he's a terrible cop if he doesn't.
And here's where the plot begins to unravel for me. Because, as I said, she's not a vigilante. She's not on a revenge kick. She doesn't even try to track down the men who attacked her until one of them is handed to her on a silver plate. The ending implies that if she can get her revenge, she can quit killing. But if she's a serial killer...well, by definition, they don't quit. They have to be stopped. Erica seems to recognise this. At one point she asks, Why doesn't someone stop me? and toward the end, her behaviour is self-destructive in a way that, again, is typical of the disorganised serial killer (except her murders are not disorganised - a bit of an error there, I think).
I think we're supposed to believe, as the credits roll, that it's over. But that seems unrealistic.
So...yes, an enjoyable film. But one which requires rather too much suspension of disbelief. On the other hand, it's Jodie Foster. How can you lose?
One thing I should say: because of the subject matter, my approach to this film is more analytical than emotional. It's a very visceral story, so my approach is, well, more distant than it should be.
Jodie Foster plays Erica Bain, a radio journalist who survives a violent attack in what I think was meant to be Central Park. Her fiance is killed and she is comatose for several weeks but eventually makes a full recovery...physically, at least. Emotionally, it's another story: she becomes agorophobic, and when she does venture out she's consumed by fear as well as grief for her dead lover. Eventually, she buys herself a gun, and shortly afterward is forced to use it in self-defence. She becomes a vigilante, walking the streets and riding the subway, killing the bad guys who cross her path.
A number of things struck me about this one. The initial attack is the most violent scene in the film. Erica and her fiance are attacked by several men. One of them films the whole thing on his cell phone, and the movie switches between normal film and blurry cell-phone footage, so that the very worst of the attack you don't see clearly, but it's all the more shocking because of what you do see: this cold-blooded thug filming a murder.
I was relieved that the attack wasn't sexual - there's an undercurrent, but the attack is violence, murder, not rape. Yet later, Erica's flashbacks of the attack are interspersed with flashbacks of her making love with her fiance. I found that extremely uncomfortable. Sure I get the sex/death connection, but this seemed to be presenting the violence as something to turn the viewer on. It was exploitative and unnecessary.
The other thing that struck me was the psychological realism of Erica as a killer. I'm not sure if her first kill is realistic; not sure because I've certainly never been there. It's self-defence, that first kill. She's in a late-night store when a man bursts in yelling at the (female) cashier. He kills her, and Erica tries to hide but he realises someone is there. It's very clear that he's going to kill her, too: she's a witness. So there's nothing morally ambiguous about her decision to shoot. What I'm not certain about is her reaction afterward. Because instead of panicking, or running she calmly gets up, steals the tape from the store's security camera, wipes off her fingerprints and walks away. I don't find that entirely believable, considering that only days before it had been a struggle for her to even get past her front door, and in a way the whole plot rests on that moment. But the pace of events picks up at that point, so the viewer isn't given much time to pick at the plot hole and the portrayal of her actions after that is consistent, and (I thought) very reaistic.
After the first time, she kills deliberately. Her initial targets are men who put themselves in her way: they approach her. Later she picks her targets in advance and plans her murders more carefully. I said earlier that she's a vigilante; that's not accurate. She's a serial killer, I believe, because she does two things that are "typical" of serial killers: she keeps trophies from her kills, and she tries to get close to the police investigation.
Trophies: Erica is a radio journalist. The first time we see her she's walking the streets of New York, recording the sounds of everyday life. She radio show is a "slice of life" kinda deal, a commentary on what life in New York is like. She carries her mike and recording equipment everywhere and when she starts killing people, she records each incident, playing them back later, in private.
Seeing cops on the scene after her second kill, she approaches the detective in charge, asking for an interview. Perhaps it's an attempt to explain her presence as she's not the only reporter on the scene, but she gets involved with the cop as time goes on. And she uses her radio show to talk about the murders in the same way some serial killers collect press cuttings.
It takes way too long for the cop to get suspicious of her. Sorry, but if I can recognise her behaviour as fitting a profile, he's a terrible cop if he doesn't.
And here's where the plot begins to unravel for me. Because, as I said, she's not a vigilante. She's not on a revenge kick. She doesn't even try to track down the men who attacked her until one of them is handed to her on a silver plate. The ending implies that if she can get her revenge, she can quit killing. But if she's a serial killer...well, by definition, they don't quit. They have to be stopped. Erica seems to recognise this. At one point she asks, Why doesn't someone stop me? and toward the end, her behaviour is self-destructive in a way that, again, is typical of the disorganised serial killer (except her murders are not disorganised - a bit of an error there, I think).
I think we're supposed to believe, as the credits roll, that it's over. But that seems unrealistic.
So...yes, an enjoyable film. But one which requires rather too much suspension of disbelief. On the other hand, it's Jodie Foster. How can you lose?