The story is about Erica Bain, who hosts a radio show in New York City. She is engaged to a young doctor (Naveen Andrews) and both are attacked while walking through Central Park one day. He dies but she survives, waking up from a coma into an unrecognizable city, filled with shadows, violence and death. She soon finds herself driven by fear to purchase a handgun and become a sort of vigilante, offering herself as bait for the killers, rapists, drug addicts and thieves that are suddenly on every corner and then shooting them, all while ruminating on the ultimate meaning of it all, wondering why nobody stops her. She soon meets a detective (Terrence Howard) who is on the trail of the vigilante that has been stalking the streets and strives to accomplish the same thing as Erica, albeit legally. The conflict of these two ideologies is one of the meatier aspects of the film, especially as their two independent stories converge upon one man that the law has been unable to touch.
The plot itself is nothing remarkable but Jodie Foster anchors the film in such a way that it doesn't really matter. By now she has proven time and time again that she is one of this generation's best actresses. As Erica Bain, she again demonstrates the perfect balance of inner turmoil. Bain is at once destroyed by what has happened to her, tenuously holding onto her sanity and her previous life and a sort of modern day female Batman, lurking in the shadows at night, looking for evil. Her performance is intense and yet detached, evidence of how much Foster understands every character she plays.
Foster is assisted by the always excellent Terrence Howard whose Detective Mercer exudes inner strength, despite his recognizable flaws. Both performances are remarkable for showing the conflicts, both internal and external of the characters. It is obvious from early on that both of these characters understand the other and that there is some degree of respect and love bound up in their relationship. (Thankfully, director Neil Jordan knows better than to try to force romance into this dark screenplay.)
One gets the feeling that this screenplay was fairly run of the mill and unimpressive. It's the individual flourishes of its lead performers and director that make it worthy of any attention.
Jordan, despite using unimaginative and cliched shots, shows that he really understands what this movie is about by avoiding the plunge into the blockbuster trap. He doesn't try to use the violence to lure in audiences. In fact, he makes it very uncomfortable and difficult to sit through. Rather, he has created a somewhat silent movie. Much of the film simply relies on Foster's impassioned voiceovers, whether they be actual voiceovers or recordings from her radio show. Her show itself is an ingenious dramatic device, allowing the opportunity to not only reflect her relationship with the city she once loved so much but also to give us a glimpse into the city itself.
One particularly inspired scene, where she is forced by an obnoxious producer to allow callers to weigh in on the vigilante killer, allows us to see the myriad responses to such cases of extreme violence, everything from fear to admiration to copycats. This scene is even more powerful for Bain's breakdown on the air as she hears the extent of the animosity and hatred and fear that run through her city.
It is this quiet, subtle psychological suspense that makes The Brave One so successful and once again proves that Foster has the acting chops to pull off almost any role.
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