March 2, 2008

The Brave One - $4

Sometimes I come away from a movie without a clear feeling about whether I liked it or not. The Brave One was one of those movies.


The Brave One is not a bad movie, it has all the marks of a movie that was made well, but almost every element in it is underwhelming.

The story revolves around Erica Bain, a New York DJ whose fiance is beaten to death trying to protect her from some thugs in the park. Erica buys a gun to help her cope with the intense fear she has of going anywhere in the city after this horrific incident. She also begins to gravitate toward dangerous parts of the city and begins using her gun and her new courage to carry out vigilante justice against an assortment of criminals.

There were many parts to this movie that just barely missed the mark. The attack on Erica and her fiance at the beginning was meant to be terrifying but the attackers were such stereotypical New York thugs the whole thing came across as a bit cheesy . Erica's transformation into a vigilante is also not entirely unbelievable but I never completely bought it either.

The acting in The Brave One was OK, not bad or good really, just adequate. Jodie Foster didn't seem quite right to me as Erica Bain but she wasn't awful.

I went into this movie with low expectations and they were exceeded slightly. I almost recommended this one but after giving it some thought I'm putting it on my 'Don't Watch It' list and giving it a value of $4.

If you saw it let me know what you thought.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

It was ok, but I watched a much better vigilante movie recently called Death Sentence with Kevin Bacon. That one was really good and got me thinking. This one was a bit bland, I didn't really care enough about the main character and this story depends on that, and it failed in that respect.

Sheamus the... said...

Yeah...I was pretty bummed. I like Foster. I think she's super talented but the movie falls way short.

I was actually outside of the theater where I work and a limo pulls up. A couple thug looking guys get out and come up to me. I am on my break in front sitting on the sidewalk...they rcognize my uniform.
They ask me if I've seen The Brave One and if I liked it. I said "No not really. Go see Eastern Promises." The thugs kinda looked at each other, one serious one laughing. Meanwhile behind me a guy I didnt notice was talking to my manager. They all go into a theater without paying.

My manager tells me the guy I was talking to was the actor who plays the Thug that gets shot in the face at the end...ha...oops.

Tony Tanti said...

stg, I haven't seen Death Sentence. I never see Kevin Bacon movies in the theatre as a rule. Might be a renter some day.

She, awesome story man. I like that at least one of them could laugh it off.

Jon Coutts said...

great story sheamus.

tanti: the fugitive is only $8? I doubt I'll ever watch it again, it got over-played, but isn't it an all time great, a "definitive" movie of its genre?

Tony Tanti said...

jon, I must be too generous with my ratings if I'm being taken to task for an $8 rating being too low. :)

A few years ago I would have given The Fugitive $9 at least but my most recent viewing was tainted by my current disrespect for Harrison Ford.

Still a great movie though and $8 is a great rating.