The Brave One

I know we are supposed to like this film. It brings together two Oscar winners, actor Jodie Foster and director Neil Jordan, and Foster herself has been sorely missed in recent years. The film has also been the talking point for some time now for reprising Foster as a single woman caught in a perilous situation, and for hinting at one of her earliest acclaimed works, Taxi Driver.

But The Brave One is pretending to be something more than it is. A woman8217;s vigilante mission after her fianceacute; is beaten to death by muggers in a park and she is brutally assaulted tries to be a story about the thin line between right and wrong. However, it ultimately chucks all of it to become just another revenge tale.

Jordan does build up well Erica Bain8217;s Foster gradual progression into shooting-at-will. Her first two targets are people who are a direct threat to her, the third a man threatening someone else, but the fourth she barely knows. Has Erica gone over, crossed the line?

Erica, who is a radio jockey, does talk about it. She is shaken and she realises there may be no going back. In scenes between her and the police detective Mercer Howard, there are things left unsaid, things too big and too incomprehensible for words, even as their eyes share the horror of it.

But films don8217;t dare end on such intangibles, even those entitled The Brave One. So Erica kills some more, gets her revenge, and we all go home. Cheated.