- May 18, 2001
- 7,831
- 295
- 126
The Brave One
The wife and I rented this one last night. We were in the mood for a crime thriller, and had heard this movie was pretty good. Plus, the DVD case said "thriller" right on the front, so we figured it was a good option. I was hoping for some sort of intense cat-and-mouse revenge type flick, or at least something where the plot kept me guessing to the end.
Without giving too much away, the basic premise of the film is this: Jodie Foster's character and her fiance are walking around under a tunnel in Central Park in the middle of the night when they are brutally attacked (who woulda thunk it?). Jodie's character survives, but not so much so with her would-be husband. After spending some quality coma time, she decides to buy an illegal gun, and then exacts her own brand of justice on evil-doers. In some ways, the plot was kind of like a Batman episode, but without the spandex.
I actually ended up liking this film. In spite of that it is always easier to complain than to praise, so here are some problems I had:
The story takes a real long time to build up steam - other than the park attack, most of the film is of people walking around acting and feeling miserable. Along those lines, the movie is very slowly paced - there is very little about it that is jolting or nerve-fraying, and a lot of the time I was wishing that something...anything... would just happen. There isn't a lot of suspense; even the violent vigilante events occur without a whole lot of buildup - they just happen suddenly and without much warning. For a thriller, this one definitely didn't have me on the edge of my seat.
There are two specific things that I found to be just a little unbelievable. For instance (again, without giving away too much), one of the things that Jodie's character did would have required her to overpower a hardened criminal who was much larger than her. Sure - she had a tire iron, but believe me when I say that nobody is worried about Jodie taking too many steroids. Also, near the end Terrence Howard's detective character seems to have a profound shift that in my opinion wasn't true to his character or explained by any of the previous events of the story. I'm all for characters changing throughout the course of a narrative, but this change didn't seem to be justified - it even seemed to fly in the face of what had gone on before.
Just to be perfectly clear: I wouldn't classify this film as a thriller; it was more of a character study. The acting in this film was top-notch. Jodie Foster was as good as always, and Terrence Howard is quickly becoming one of my favorite actors. The film is dark and moody and a tangible feeling of gloom hangs over every single scene. This is one of those movies where you sense that the ending isn't going to be very good for any of the characters. The best scenes are the quiet ones with Jodie and Terrence simply talking to each other. They show a real chemistry on screen that has nothing to do with romance, and through excellent dialog their characters are fleshed out to become real. Oh, and if you like to see depictions of violent criminals getting what is coming to them, then you might like this one.
All in all, this was a pretty good movie, although it was not at all what I thought it was going to be. It's not action packed, but it has a solid story and some great performances. I'll give it 7/10.
The wife and I rented this one last night. We were in the mood for a crime thriller, and had heard this movie was pretty good. Plus, the DVD case said "thriller" right on the front, so we figured it was a good option. I was hoping for some sort of intense cat-and-mouse revenge type flick, or at least something where the plot kept me guessing to the end.
Without giving too much away, the basic premise of the film is this: Jodie Foster's character and her fiance are walking around under a tunnel in Central Park in the middle of the night when they are brutally attacked (who woulda thunk it?). Jodie's character survives, but not so much so with her would-be husband. After spending some quality coma time, she decides to buy an illegal gun, and then exacts her own brand of justice on evil-doers. In some ways, the plot was kind of like a Batman episode, but without the spandex.
I actually ended up liking this film. In spite of that it is always easier to complain than to praise, so here are some problems I had:
The story takes a real long time to build up steam - other than the park attack, most of the film is of people walking around acting and feeling miserable. Along those lines, the movie is very slowly paced - there is very little about it that is jolting or nerve-fraying, and a lot of the time I was wishing that something...anything... would just happen. There isn't a lot of suspense; even the violent vigilante events occur without a whole lot of buildup - they just happen suddenly and without much warning. For a thriller, this one definitely didn't have me on the edge of my seat.
There are two specific things that I found to be just a little unbelievable. For instance (again, without giving away too much), one of the things that Jodie's character did would have required her to overpower a hardened criminal who was much larger than her. Sure - she had a tire iron, but believe me when I say that nobody is worried about Jodie taking too many steroids. Also, near the end Terrence Howard's detective character seems to have a profound shift that in my opinion wasn't true to his character or explained by any of the previous events of the story. I'm all for characters changing throughout the course of a narrative, but this change didn't seem to be justified - it even seemed to fly in the face of what had gone on before.
Just to be perfectly clear: I wouldn't classify this film as a thriller; it was more of a character study. The acting in this film was top-notch. Jodie Foster was as good as always, and Terrence Howard is quickly becoming one of my favorite actors. The film is dark and moody and a tangible feeling of gloom hangs over every single scene. This is one of those movies where you sense that the ending isn't going to be very good for any of the characters. The best scenes are the quiet ones with Jodie and Terrence simply talking to each other. They show a real chemistry on screen that has nothing to do with romance, and through excellent dialog their characters are fleshed out to become real. Oh, and if you like to see depictions of violent criminals getting what is coming to them, then you might like this one.
All in all, this was a pretty good movie, although it was not at all what I thought it was going to be. It's not action packed, but it has a solid story and some great performances. I'll give it 7/10.
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