Jodie Foster has been my leading lady since the Taxi Driver. An intelligent beautiful woman who never seems to slip or fall. In the Brave One she pulls a brilliant performance playing a deeply traumatized woman trying to get back the life that used to be hers. Mugged to coma, boyfriend killed and dog stolen. This kind of stuff sort of gets the romance out of your repertoire.
Sideline: A cerebral trauma causing a long loss of consciousness probably leaves traces in the brain -even though psychomotor functions test normal, there are more subtle changes affecting emotion and values which impair social functions. I am pretty sure that Jodie Foster has done her homework here. Erica Bain had lost the connection to her feeling self with the exception of urge to survive.
What we have here is a psychopath. Her hands do not tremble when she shoots somebody. There is no guilt. there is no excitement. On the positive side of the emotional spectrum we can observe her laying her hand on the hand and the shoulder of the cop. Her neighbour's sympathy is bothersome unless useful in stitching her up after the encounter.
What if the heroine was somebody less sympathetic, less cultivated and not quite as beautiful as Jodie Foster? Now the spectator goes on sympathizing with the vigilante who has taken the law in her own hands. We cannot blame him, really, as even the Law falls in the same trap in the form of detective Mercer.
What is this film a picture of?
Are people getting fed up with mindless people committing mindlessly violent acts and getting away with it?
Are we willing to let our instincts rule as fear is lurking behind every corner?
Is law only for us, the Good Guys whereas bad boys can fool around as they wish?
But personally I do not see the film promoting dangerous ideas, it is just depicting them.
But who can be sure...maybe there is somebody somewhere who thinks: "Jody Foster can shoot people and get away with it, why couldn't I".
Chilly film.
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