Lois Lane's Tales Of The Dark Side: Falling Down,
Not So Bravely, With A Death Wish In Mind
The Popcorn Reel Movie Review: "The Brave One"
By Omar P.L. Moore/August 23, 2007 - opens on September 14 in the U.S. and
Canada
Fear Acts Out: Jodie Foster as Erica Bain in "The Brave
One", directed by Neil Jordan. (All photos: Abbot Genser/Warner Brothers)
printer-friendly
Neil Jordan's well-intentioned
psychological crime drama is full of shades of gray, and right and wrong.
When New York City talk radio host Erica Bain is violently attacked and her
boyfriend killed by a bunch of troublemaking young men in Central Park,
something has irreversibly changed in her. "The Brave One" clings to her
every heartbeat, fear wracking the soul of the feral Erica, played with a great
balance of tautness and warmth by Jodie Foster, whose previous incarnations as a
rape survivor in "The Accused", a tormented FBI agent in "The Silence of the
Lambs" and as a paranoid airline passenger in "Flightplan", are close cousins of
her latest onscreen portrayal.
"The Brave One" plays like its 1974 forerunner "Death Wish", to which it is
unafraid of paying homage, but there is also a "Law And Order" quality to
Jordan's film, with its ripped-from-the-headlines crime stories, eight million
of which are embedded in New York City history. For example, Bernard
Goetz, the notorious and infamous subway vigilante shooter in 1984, is
mentioned by one character during "The Brave One", and re-enacted for
amplification.
And the racial attack on Michael Griffith in Queens (1986), along with the
Central Park Jogger attack in 1989, are also strongly evoked (an attack in which a sole perpetrator
admitted to committing, albeit after at least five innocent young
men had been jailed for it during an intense media storm.) So Mr. Jordan certainly knows his recent New York history.
The director also skillfully mines the racial terrain in the film and his
"Crying Game" (1992) with Stephen Rea and Forest Whitaker, was an example of
brotherhood across the racial spectrum. Here, Jordan provides the added spice of an
interracial relationship between Erica and David (Naveen Andrews of "Grindhouse"'s
"Planet Terror".) He also balances the right-wrong pendulum racially.
The victims and aggressors in "The Brave One" are white, Black, and Hispanic, and
more than a hint of romance flickers between Erica Bain and New York City police
detective Sean Mercer (the excellent Terrence Howard), who is doggedly pursuing a
serial killer. There's one scene between Foster and Howard that is so
tender, authentic and loving, and it perhaps provides the only rational tie-in to
what will happen later on in "The Brave One". More moments between these two
fine actors would have fueled the film's subterranean and emotional heart, which
is evoked by sensual flashbacks of Erica and David's intimate bliss. One
jarring and powerful aspect of the film is the early juxtaposition of these flashbacks with
the aftermath of the violence against the couple that has affected these
flashbacks forever. Philippe Rousselot's cinematography nicely captures
shadowy, elegant and foreboding slices of New York City in the nighttime and in
the day. Dario Marianelli's score also works well for the film at numerous
points.
Pondering the past, the present, and a future:
Jodie Foster as Erica, and Terrence Howard as Detective Sean Mercer; Naveen Andrews as
David, with Foster in "The Brave One".
Erica Bain, who works at WNKW-FM radio under the station's director Carol (Mary Steenburgen), is a shrewd
counterpoint to Clark Kent's Superman. Bain is the long-lost alter ego, if
you will, of the Daily Planet's Lois Lane. For Bain is passionate and
vulnerable when talking about the beauty and danger of New York City by day, and
then volatile and vengeful when contributing to its grimy underbelly and
sordidness at night with her own violent exploits. Bain is the bane of her
own existence, she as vixen-type leather-clad avenger, sometimes in
self-defense, other times in Truman Capote-novel-like fashion. Bain has
better acumen than the Michael Douglas character in Joel Schumacher's "Falling
Down" (1993), and packs
even more of a visceral punch. Neil Jordan's film depicts acts that are at
the very least provocative, but there isn't all that much about "The Brave One"
that is thought-provoking.
There are however, parts of "The Brave One" that are poignant, moving and touching, and
other parts that are tense and terrifying. Most everyone watching it will
readily identify with Erica, and if the audience members have experienced their
own brushes with crime violence whether as city dwellers or suburban slickers,
they will find that this aspect of Neil Jordan's speaks loudest to them,
resonating unmistakably. Violence is a part of the fabric of American life
as it is everywhere, and when Erica confesses to having killed a man, her
neighbor doesn't bat an eyelid, and proceeds to talk about her village in her
native country on the
African continent, where "the kids are given guns to kill their parents."
The more provocative exploration of violence and empathy with its perpetrators is to
wonder where an audience's sympathy
would lie if Mr. Jordan had switched the racial equation and instead had a
lead black character in the role of Bronson-like vengeance
dispenser.
The other side of justice: Jodie Foster as Erica
Bain in "The Brave One", directed by Neil Jordan.
Where "The Brave One" goes wrong is in its justification of all of Erica's
responses to the tragedy she suffers early on. The film allows for the
protagonist to be given a mulligan of sorts, utilizing narration by Erica to
further explain and legitimize her actions and her fearful disposition.
Mr. Jordan is far too smart for this unnecessary voice-over, yet he appears to
be seduced by it as much as his lead actor's character is entranced by
her insatiable thrill of the kill. The script and story, written by
Roderick Taylor & Bruce A. Taylor (with Cynthia Mort as the script's co-writer) could in fact have
done Ms. Foster more justice by portraying Erica Bain as a harder-edged, more
nuanced, and less sympathetic character than she ends up being, even though grief
fuels her anger and doesn't soften her demeanor. While the
change in Erica happens in less time than an overnight package takes to get to
your doorstep, there could have been more shading to Bain, an
obviously savvy and troubled person. Ultimately though, the script sells Erica short. More
ambiguity and less moralization -- and without the distinct cues of all-encompassing fear, which in this film is helped on by an
over-stylizing that while working well in Jordan's prior films, doesn't here --
would have made "The Brave One" bold.
Instead, the preposterous ending is a literal cop-out, and even though it is somewhat
realistic when one considers Los Angeles' most renowned protectors and servers, it doesn't
give justice to the film's major players. Any explanation of the ending, or at
least anything that assists the audience's understanding of what facilitates it, would have
been better than what is displayed here. It is in this sense that the film
betrays itself, performing a most authentic and disturbing violation: some killing we applaud,
other killing we don't.
It just depends on who's pulling the trigger.
"The Brave One" opens across North America on September 14. The film
also features Nicky Katt, Lenny Venito, Victor Colicchio, Jane Adams and Zoe Kravitz.
"The Brave One" is rated R for strong violence, language, and some sexuality.
The film's duration is two hours and five minutes. Susan Downey and Joel
Silver produced the film, and Jodie Foster was one of its executive producers.
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