CHICAGO – Jodie Foster reinvents herself and plays a vigilante flung galaxies out of character in “The Brave One,” which opened on Friday.
Though initially a blissfully love-struck woman who you’d think couldn’t swat a fly and “can’t feel my body without your arms around me,” a randomly tragic event brings out the wicked, wicked witch in her she didn’t know existed.
Think Spider-Man but much more violent or the Punisher but female.
The same woman who couldn’t even acquire a gun legally (Hollywood too easily and unrealistically helps her there) and certainly doesn’t even know how to fire one sure learns posthaste.
Be careful of the bait and switch, though, as “The Brave One” flip-flops from start to finish between a heart film with a vigilante and a vigilante film with a heart. Director Neil Jordan and his trio of writers don’t seem to make up their minds which way this picture should go.
Though riding its story through is a bit of a nauseating seesaw, there’s undeniable entertainment value – for right or wrong – in watching bad guys get wasted. Issued by a vengeful woman – for right or wrong – delivers that much more in-your-face satisfaction.
Though some people surely could snap as she did, the film implies that anyone in her shoes would have done just the same. I can’t buy that.
As for the originality of this film and its story, points have to be deducted due to the prior existence of the independent film “Gold Digger Killer [10]”. Though not even appearing on IMDb and likely unknown to most people, its description smacks suspectingly similiar:
When Imani is fired from a job that provides for her and her man, her life gets turned upside down. Not ready for the contained life of a cared-for woman, she becomes the ultimate victim.
When it comes time to seek revenge, Imani comes for the whole misogynistic system.
[11] | By ADAM FENDELMAN [12] |
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