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Let me start off by saying that I loved this flick. I hesitate to read reviews prior to seeing a movie because I prefer to draw my own conclusions and work out my own opinions as uninfluenced by the so-called "experts" as possible. Usually the "experts" are critical snobs unable to just sit back, relax and enjoy a film for what it is and not wait for it to turn into what they expect (or would like) it to be. After I see a film, critic reviews are fair game. I glossed over a few reviews of The Brave One but largely decided to ignore critic responses because really, I wasn't interested. I noticed that The Brave One drew comparisons to two other vigilante noir films, Ms. 45 and (most predominantly) Death Wish. Well I've never seen either, mostly because I am not a fan of this particular genre and also because I have never been a fan of Charles Bronson. Eastwood and I developed an appreciation for each other over the years, beginning with my mom somehow allowing me to see Play Misty For Me way back in the day. Bronson has never rocked my socks and I definitely never had a desire to flirt. Somehow, I seriously doubt that Death Wish managed the kind of subtletly and nuance that The Brave One, especially Jodie Foster, does.
The Brave One isn't just a vigilante film. Erica Bain isn't just a vengeful "super-cunt," a la Ms. 45, rampaging across the city murdering people. Reading plot synopsis of both Death Wish and Ms. 45, I was very surprised at the comparisons. The Brave One, IMHO, transcends the vigilante/film noir label and incorporates psychological drama, possibly elevating the genre into something far more nuanced, artistic, and empathetic. I say possibly only because I don't want to imply that the other two films don't measure up because of categorical labels and the associated expectations which, I still think, The Brave One manages to work around. I was surprised by the way that the ending played out and I continue to have reservations about the film's resolution, but as a whole, I really, really enjoyed it.
Erica Bain (Jody Foster) and David Kamari (Naveen Andrews) are going to be married. Content, in love, comfortable and secure in a way that always seems to invite tragedy. Bain is a popular NPR-esque radio host in love with the city of New York, Kamari is a doctor. Walking through Central Park, near the aptly named Stranger's Gate, one evening they are met by randomly and pointless violence, the degree of its viciousness making it incredibly hard to watch.
What follows is a woman's tragic, sad and violent journey towards equilibrium.
Erica and David are severely beaten beneath one of Central Park's many covered bridges for no apparent reason. David, savagely beaten with a pipe, does not survive the trauma and dies while Erica is in a three-week coma. When she awakens it is to find that her fiance is dead and buried. It nearly broke my heart when Foster reaches out to his mother who is perched on the edge of the hospital bed with one hand, presses the other against her own chest, over her heart, and says "I want to see him again." It has to be an excruciatingly devastating blow to wake up one day and find that you have lost acres of time and that in the span of those lost hours, a loved one has died and been laid to rest before you got the chance to say goodbye.
I don't know if her eyes are always so blue or if were just the effects of the close-ups (of which there were many) but it seemed that every time Foster was going through a particularly emotional scene her eyes became these sad, intensely cerulean pools of emotion. Her huge blue eyes in her thin, razored face.
Those eyes and the character's edges are the fascinating things about this movie. The way that the character loses her self in the violence as she seeks to regain some lost part of herself. The first murder is, arguably, in self-defense and it terrifies her. However, as Erica walks away from the crime scene, having recovered the surveillance video, she starts to walk taller, stronger. It is a walk that will haunt the night as insomnia and rage overwhelm her life and lead her down a primrose path of vigilantism.
Despite her targets, I never cheered for Erica Bain. It was very clear that the character was on a path of self-destruction, seeking her own death as much as the deaths of those she hunted. That said, there is a certain amount of empathy for the character. And you wonder, when will she be caught and will she survive the capture.
And that is where I heartily disagreed with the movie's ending. She gets away with it. We're meant to believe that the bond that she forms with Detective Mercer (Terrence Howard) culminates in his BREAKING THE LAW to cover up her crimes. I didn't buy it, not one bit. Although, the ending is foreshadowed by the conversation in the diner, I was totally expecting something different. I wanted something different. Her getting away with the crimes was distinctly unappealing. There was no real separation between what she did and what the criminals did. Erica WAS a criminal!
Other than that, as I said before, I enjoyed the film. The passes near Stranger's Gate was a nice, if overused, metaphor for the shift in her sense of her own identity. I didn't quite get the connection drawn by the neighbor, Josai, between the youths in her country and Erica's nightly vigilante attacks. As much as the movie instills a theme of Take Back the Night, we are never really challenged to question the location of her activities on a moral spectrum. What she does is wrong. That is made explicitly clear when she nearly kills the hooker/runaway, Chloe, held hostage and doped in the back of a car. As much as Erica wants to save her, tries to save, the method she uses to do so back fire and she ends up in the hospital with severe injuries. Chloe doesn't give her up, in the end, but her identity, as one of the cities lost and displaced, doesn't suggest that she would ever turn her in. What she does say keys into that part of the psyche that thrills at the idea of a vigilante delivering justice on behalf of the people:
"I saw nobody. And nobody saw me."
Terrence Howard was brilliant as usual. And pretty, also as usual. I am continually thrilled by his performances. I'm never prepared for him to be as amazing as he is. I don't know what it is. He acts with an ease and comfort that I find astonishing, even when playing very intense parts.
In the end, I think that part of me really identified with this film because I saw it right after my car was stolen, and even though the level of violation is nowhere near as traumatic, there is still a sense that you've lost control of your life. That fear, as Erica says, that was always there "waiting beneath the surfaces of everything you loved" colors everything until you take back control. Re-claim the business of living and find something to make you strong again.
The Brave One isn't just a vigilante film. Erica Bain isn't just a vengeful "super-cunt," a la Ms. 45, rampaging across the city murdering people. Reading plot synopsis of both Death Wish and Ms. 45, I was very surprised at the comparisons. The Brave One, IMHO, transcends the vigilante/film noir label and incorporates psychological drama, possibly elevating the genre into something far more nuanced, artistic, and empathetic. I say possibly only because I don't want to imply that the other two films don't measure up because of categorical labels and the associated expectations which, I still think, The Brave One manages to work around. I was surprised by the way that the ending played out and I continue to have reservations about the film's resolution, but as a whole, I really, really enjoyed it.
Erica Bain (Jody Foster) and David Kamari (Naveen Andrews) are going to be married. Content, in love, comfortable and secure in a way that always seems to invite tragedy. Bain is a popular NPR-esque radio host in love with the city of New York, Kamari is a doctor. Walking through Central Park, near the aptly named Stranger's Gate, one evening they are met by randomly and pointless violence, the degree of its viciousness making it incredibly hard to watch.
What follows is a woman's tragic, sad and violent journey towards equilibrium.
Erica and David are severely beaten beneath one of Central Park's many covered bridges for no apparent reason. David, savagely beaten with a pipe, does not survive the trauma and dies while Erica is in a three-week coma. When she awakens it is to find that her fiance is dead and buried. It nearly broke my heart when Foster reaches out to his mother who is perched on the edge of the hospital bed with one hand, presses the other against her own chest, over her heart, and says "I want to see him again." It has to be an excruciatingly devastating blow to wake up one day and find that you have lost acres of time and that in the span of those lost hours, a loved one has died and been laid to rest before you got the chance to say goodbye.
I don't know if her eyes are always so blue or if were just the effects of the close-ups (of which there were many) but it seemed that every time Foster was going through a particularly emotional scene her eyes became these sad, intensely cerulean pools of emotion. Her huge blue eyes in her thin, razored face.
Those eyes and the character's edges are the fascinating things about this movie. The way that the character loses her self in the violence as she seeks to regain some lost part of herself. The first murder is, arguably, in self-defense and it terrifies her. However, as Erica walks away from the crime scene, having recovered the surveillance video, she starts to walk taller, stronger. It is a walk that will haunt the night as insomnia and rage overwhelm her life and lead her down a primrose path of vigilantism.
Despite her targets, I never cheered for Erica Bain. It was very clear that the character was on a path of self-destruction, seeking her own death as much as the deaths of those she hunted. That said, there is a certain amount of empathy for the character. And you wonder, when will she be caught and will she survive the capture.
And that is where I heartily disagreed with the movie's ending. She gets away with it. We're meant to believe that the bond that she forms with Detective Mercer (Terrence Howard) culminates in his BREAKING THE LAW to cover up her crimes. I didn't buy it, not one bit. Although, the ending is foreshadowed by the conversation in the diner, I was totally expecting something different. I wanted something different. Her getting away with the crimes was distinctly unappealing. There was no real separation between what she did and what the criminals did. Erica WAS a criminal!
Other than that, as I said before, I enjoyed the film. The passes near Stranger's Gate was a nice, if overused, metaphor for the shift in her sense of her own identity. I didn't quite get the connection drawn by the neighbor, Josai, between the youths in her country and Erica's nightly vigilante attacks. As much as the movie instills a theme of Take Back the Night, we are never really challenged to question the location of her activities on a moral spectrum. What she does is wrong. That is made explicitly clear when she nearly kills the hooker/runaway, Chloe, held hostage and doped in the back of a car. As much as Erica wants to save her, tries to save, the method she uses to do so back fire and she ends up in the hospital with severe injuries. Chloe doesn't give her up, in the end, but her identity, as one of the cities lost and displaced, doesn't suggest that she would ever turn her in. What she does say keys into that part of the psyche that thrills at the idea of a vigilante delivering justice on behalf of the people:
"I saw nobody. And nobody saw me."
Terrence Howard was brilliant as usual. And pretty, also as usual. I am continually thrilled by his performances. I'm never prepared for him to be as amazing as he is. I don't know what it is. He acts with an ease and comfort that I find astonishing, even when playing very intense parts.
In the end, I think that part of me really identified with this film because I saw it right after my car was stolen, and even though the level of violation is nowhere near as traumatic, there is still a sense that you've lost control of your life. That fear, as Erica says, that was always there "waiting beneath the surfaces of everything you loved" colors everything until you take back control. Re-claim the business of living and find something to make you strong again.
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no subject
Date: 2008-04-08 09:02 pm (UTC)From:(I hated the unbelievable ending of Flight Plan, too, but anything Jodie is in is worth watching even if just for her!)
no subject
Date: 2008-04-09 04:05 am (UTC)From:But still, you should totally watch it.