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List Price: $28.98 | | Label: Warner Home Video
Salesrank: 4220
Released: February 5, 2008 |
| Our Price: $2.90 |
| Used Price: $1.82 |
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MPAA Rating: R (Restricted)
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
"Why don‘t they stop me?" Erica Bain wonders. Bain, a popular N.Y radio host, watched her fiancé die and nearly lost her own life to a vicious, random attack. Now she discovers a stranger within herself, an armed wanderer in the urban night, out for vengeance and at war with her own soul. Two-time Academy Award winner Jodie Foster, as Erica, joins Oscar nominee Terrence Howard, as a determined cop hot on her trail. Erica?s future is uncertain, but one thing is not: THE BRAVE ONE is a high- tension thriller that packs a visceral and emotional punch.
Description of The Brave One (Widescreen Edition):
Neil Jordan's somber The Brave One is a lot of things. A reflective movie about a crime victim's sense of dislocation and isolation from her own life following a harrowing trauma, the film will strike a chord with a lot of people who have known violence. The Brave One is also a provocative drama about the nature of justice, a theme explored endlessly in American movies that typically find law enforcement wanting. In Jordan's film, however, the conflict between instinctive vigilantism and legal protocols is approached with more deliberateness and complexity than usual. Finally, despite its seriousness of purpose, The Brave One, to a certain extent, is drearily tethered to the old atrocity-and-revenge genre, bumping along to the familiar, Death Wish-like rhythms of an avenger seeking successive conflicts with bad guys he or she can blow away.
Somewhat at cross-purposes, The Brave One stars Jodie Foster in a shattering performance as Erica Bain, a popular essayist on a public radio station in New York. In love and engaged to David (Naveen Andrews), a doctor, Erica and her fiancé are brutally attacked one night by a gang of thugs. David is killed but Erica survives, only to find herself a stranger in her own skin, facing down her fears by shooting violent criminals.
With the city riveted by her anonymous actions, Erica becomes an object of curiosity for a police detective (an excellent Terrence Howard) disillusioned by his own struggles to protect the innocent from truly evil men. Jordan's previous films (The Crying Game, Breakfast on Pluto) resonate with The Brave One's most interesting angle, i.e., that each of us possesses a hidden element in our identities that comes out in extreme circumstances, making us wonder who we really are. It's all excellent food for thought, but the film squanders much of its significance by thrusting Erica into numerous, outlandish situations in which her only alternative is to put a bullet in a bad guy. The result is a smart film tediously structured like a disposable B movie. --Tom Keogh
The Brave One (Widescreen Edition) Reviews:
Meh. 
2008-07-19 - A lot of problems with this one. Quite a few long boring scenes that stretched my patience. Many scenes were just implausible (NY subway stations are NEVER empty). Many scenes seemed stagey, not realistic. They seemed like set pieces. Had to take a break several times to break up the monotony. Jodie is a fine actress but I never really cared deeply about her character. The best part of the movie was the cute dog!! Dogs rock!!
Violent and Vindictive-I liked it. 
2008-07-11 - I liked this movie. I think Jodie Foster is extremely talented and she always does well with raw gritty performances such as this one. When her fiance is killed, I, of course, am bawling like a baby. The flashbacks of them making love with that Sarah MacLaughlin song playing in the background was gut wrenching. She takes the law into her own hands which I am totally okay with in this instance. It is a good movie. Predictable, but I liked it anyway.
The Brave One 
2008-07-10 - Although we have seen many vigilante movies, this one takes a very different approach. First it is a woman that is wronged by a gang that kills her fiance. But even though she goes after them, this movie is as much about her psychological changes as the acts of vengence. Well thought out screenplay with excellent character development. This is not at all in a class with the Bronson or other vigilante movies. Jodie Foster as always is a consumate actress and pulls off another unforgettable dramatic performance as a radio jock with a show about her feelings for New York City. Even after her change to a stranger that executes killers she reaches out to the city. Terrence Howard does a fine job as the cop pursueing the vigilante. Good quality DVD and fair replayability. If you enjoyed this catch "Inside Man", "Panic Room", and "Flightplan".
The Brave One
2008-07-07 - A well based drama with appropriate twists and turns. Enjoyed by both family members.
Where to start?
2008-07-05 - I accidentally, somehow, started this movie about an hour in. The funny thing is that it actually would've been better. I went back and watched the beginning and it was what you already KNOW the movie is about. They really amp up the violence to make it "affect" you more, but it's a little too much and just makes you uncomfortable. Jodie Foster did a good job with the part. An interesting glimpse into the human condition, as well as the failure of law enforcement and the legal system in most criminal situations. Just okay...
