She’s Batman, without
the
cool toys, awesome car, interesting story, or excitement.
Jodie Foster stars as Erica
Bain – a New York City
radio talk show host who
specializes in portraying and celebrating the real New York
as she lives her picture perfect,
hipster metropolitan lifestyle. One
night, when walking home through Central
Park
with her fiancée (Naveen Andrews), the two love birds
brutally are attacked by
some street thugs. Weeks
after the
violent act, she befriends a crusading, impeccable detective, Mercer
(Terrence
Howard), but also spends her nights looking to stand up for other
victims and
protect them from attacks similar to hers.
Will Erica be able to carry
on her vigilante campaign? How
far is
she willing to go? Will
Mercer figure it
all out?
The Brave One should be
called The Boring One or The Bland One.
The movie stands as one of the biggest disappointments of 2007 as we see
a film with a great premise and fantastic lead actors fail due to a poor
script, unimaginative directing and a lack of tense, real drama.
Director Neil Jordan brings
a tired 1970’s feel to the movie which slows the pace to that of a slug moving
through the mud. Then, he mixes odd
images, like those of Foster being worked on in the emergency room and shots of
her fiancée making love to her and touching the same spots the doctors and
nurses need to address to save her life (ICK!).
Some of Erica’s showdowns with the bad guys have some interest and spark
to them, but most of these scenes pass by too quickly and only briefly
interrupt long periods of nothingness.
I got the sense Jordan and
the writing team (Roderick Taylor, Bruce A. Taylor and Cynthia Mort) want The Brave One to be a moody, dark exploration of pain and revenge (the same feelings
I experienced during and after the movie), but the material never lives up to
the goal, especially when interrupted by wisecracking, hard boiled cops who
make us laugh with their machismo-driven responses to crime and the horrific
details they are viewing at each crime scene.
It’s so out of place, you laugh at how funny they are and how weird this
sounds in this movie. The dialogue fails
to capture the imagination or bring us any deeper understanding of the
characters past the obvious. Worst of all, the script takes two passionate,
complex and talented actors and makes them uninteresting.
Foster is fine as the
troubled, crusading woman looking to fill the void left in her life after the
attack, and hoping to bring back her own self confidence, while Howard does the
best he can with thin material defining Mercer as the good cop questioning the
system as the bad guys slip away. Both
are subject to an idiotic ending, but the duo is about the only reason to buy a
ticket to The Brave One.
1 Waffle (Out of 4)
The Brave One is
rated R for strong violence, language and some sexuality.
Copyright
2007 - WaffleMovies.com