Film - The Brave One (2007, Dir. Neil Jordan)

Jodie Foster, while not being what I’d call my favourite actress, is someone I will always watch. Along with the likes of Robert De Niro, Christian Bale, Al Pacino and Edward Norton, knowing she’s in a film will have me taking the trip to the cinema because I know she won’t let me down. Her output is low by Hollywood standards, one of the luxuries of knowing you don’t have to take every scrap of work that’s offered to you. However, as far as I’m concerned she doesn’t make particularly bad films. From Taxi Driver to Silence of the Lambs and Panic Room to name but three, her choices have been solid, yet challenging roles. With The Brave One, we see her playing a woman who has been through terrible personal trauma and is slowly trying to rebuild her life. Not exactly Mary Poppins, then.

The story revolves around Foster’s character, Erica Bain, and her struggle to come to terms with the brutal murder of her fiancé while they were enjoying an evening walk in the park. She has her own radio show in which she talks about her beloved New York, indeed the film opens with her calm and steady voice describing scenes and memories of the city. However, her peaceful and relatively uncomplicated life is thrown into chaos after the death of her partner, who is buried while she is in a three-week coma. Erica is denied any kind of closure, initially scared of ever venturing onto the streets of her beloved home city and disillusioned by the apparent lack of enthusiasm of the police in pursuit of her assailants. Through slightly less-than-legal means, she gets herself a gun. At first, it’s hard to tell whether she does so out of a lust for revenge or purely because she’s scared and wants some protection. Her mind is soon made up for her, when she is forced to use the gun during a grocery store shooting.

Erica is shaken by the incident but the continued impotence of the police when it comes to finding her partner’s killers begins to frustrate her. On a late night train, two young men accost her after they have scared off the other passengers. Again she uses her gun and two more of the city’s low-life’s are killed. This time her reaction is not so much one of shock but surprise at how calm she is. From then on, she begins to accept that, as part of her grieving process, she is becoming someone else, developing another persona.

Of course, all this killing being done means there’s soon a cop on the trail. Enter Detective Mercer, well played by Terence Howard (Hustle and Flow, Crash). He’s one of the city’s ‘good’ cops, whose marriage evidently suffered and ultimately failed because of his dedication to the job. He is soon befriended by Erica after she interviews him for her show. As the story moves on, Mercer begins to suspect that Erica is somehow linked to the killings, but just how, is harder for him to determine.

As two characters who have lost people, although in very different ways, whom they loved, the connection they share is portrayed subtly and with just the tiniest hint of attraction. While initially motivated by her own mugging, Erica only goes after her attackers after Mercer manages to track down her ring, which was stolen at the time. After a little detective work of her own, Erica manages to locate the guys that changed the course of her life so violently. In an indication of her relationship with Mercer, Erica contacts him to tell him that she’s going to end it, giving him the chance to catch her.

The ending, while perhaps not wanting to outrage audiences, falls between a ‘Hollywood’ ending and a more gritty conclusion. The best thing about it is the fact that once Erica finds closure, of a sort, the film ends. And that’s as it should be. There’s no need to draw it out, to see how she got on with her life. All we need to know is that it ended and that what Erica needed to do, she did. Literally, ‘end of story’.

The performances in this film are first class, particularly from Foster and Howard. Their characters’ relationship is handled with just the right amount of affection, with as much emphasis put on what is not being said between them, as what is. Howard, notably at one point, has to convincingly show a momentary and uncharacteristic lack of commitment to his duty, which he couldn’t show while he was married - another indication of the connection between the two characters.

The film, although slow-paced at times, is engaging, while never glorifying or sensationalising the vigilante behaviour of it’s main protagonist. There was also scope for the film to become preachy but that too was something that never came about. The result is a film that, due in some part to the ending, leaves you wondering what you would do in the same circumstances.