Rating of
1/4
Foster's Dedicated Performance Can't Save the Film
newmans_own - wrote on 09/14/07
Despite the dedication of its star, Jodie Foster, THE BRAVE ONE is a dark, muddied and muddled affair, momentarily appeasing those seeking for thrills and disappointing those expecting a valid point to be made.
Director Neil Jordan (of THE CRYING GAME and INTERVIEW WITH A VAMPIRE) visually brings Erica’s paranoid, unraveling life into dizzying effect; the camera often sways from side to side, plainly illustrating Erica’s anxiety and her growing disgust with herself. And, as always, Foster’s performance as woman-on-the-verge is compelling and instantly sympathetic. To see her diminutive figure and wide blue eyes shaking with fear whenever she fires doesn’t exactly illicit whoops and cheers from the audience. Never is this combination more apparent than in the chilling drug store sequence, when Erica fires her first shot.
Yet despite the high style of the film and Foster’s compelling performance, it is crippled by a lack of initiative on the part of the script. During the more dramatic scenes, Erica’s self-disgust and the sometimes preachy dialogue delivered by Terrence Howard condemn vigilante justice as the wrong solution. Yet when Erica brandishes her weapon, the film is all for vigilante justice. It doesn’t care whether it’s right or wrong, it cares about giving Foster good punch lines before she shoots someone in the face.
It works decently enough as a typical revenge thriller, but its motives become completely unclear when it tries to kick a message in. Erica is disgusted with what she’s becoming, but the audience cannot agree with her there.
*
Full review at http://newmanscorner.blogspot.com
