The Brave One

Starring: Jodie Foster and Terrence Howard

Directed by: Neil Jordan

Rating: I Liked It

            Everyone cares so much about one thing or one person that if you lost that thing or person you care so much about, you would become a completely different person. 

                That is the case for Erica Bain (Jodie Foster) when she and her fiancé are attacked randomly in New York’s Central Park.  Erica is a popular talk radio host and is in the midst of planning her wedding with fiancé David Kirmani (Naveen Andrews) when a walk with their dog in the park turns deadly.  Three attackers beat and rob the killing David in the process. . 

                After awakening from three weeks of unconsciousness, Erica learns that David was killed.  She becomes afraid of the city, its people and its shadows.  When she eventually overcomes the fear enough to venture back out in the world, one of her first stops is to purchase protection: a 9mm handgun.  Erica soon finds that the only thing that will fill the whole left by her deceased fiancé is vigilantism. 

                Hot on the trail of the unknown vigilante is police detective Mercer (Terrence Howard).  Detective Mercer is a good cop, and he has always been on the good side of the thin line between right and wrong.  Will this case be the one that causes him to topple across the line he so carefully walks?  After befriending the unknown vigilante, Mercer begins to make one wonder.  

                Foster’s character is predictably well performed as always, but the real show stealer is Howard.  In past films such as “Hustle and Flow” and “Pride”, Howard has shown his prowess, and in this film, his talent is displayed as natural as always.

                The movie moves along at fairly slow pace, but stills holds a solid emotional stance with which the audience can relate.  Just as the movie shows during a radio broadcast of Erica’s show, there will be people who feel they can relate to Erica, but there will also be those who disagree with her taking the law into her own hands. 

                Erica feels that what she does is the right thing to be doing, but also feels some remorse.  It’s during the first airing of her show in which her producer insists she begin accepting callers that the real impact of what she’s done begins to hit home.  As Mercer and Erica become closer and closer, Mercer moves in the same way toward discovering the true identity of the reckless vigilante. 

                The film presents the audience with a woman that has been driven to the one of the worst possible places a person can go emotionally.  After the murder and loss of her beloved, Erica Bain is no longer the woman she once was.  Her neighbor makes the comment that “…anyone can cross that line.  Anyone can be a killer.” 

                Erica is presented with the opportunity to do the right thing, but decides to take matters into her own hands several times.  She is a woman pushed to the extreme, a person who has loved so much and lost.  She is a person that is not the person she once was, changed by the loss of something she cared so much about….a person not that different from any other.