More on The Brave One.

The Brave One's "none-too-subtle governing idea is that even the most effete, brownstone-dwelling public radio listener (or New York Times reader) might feel the occasional urge to blow someone’s head off," writes AO Scott in, well, you know.

So why are vigilante movies baaaack? In Slate, Eric Lichtenfeld argues that, for one thing, they never really went away; but yes, as he traces their history, he can see parallels that might link The Brave One and Death Sentence with Death Wish et al: "Today, as in the 70s, America faces economic, environmental, and energy-related crises. In both generations, Americans wrestle with political powerlessness, on fronts ranging from their own health care to the country's role on the global stage.... And both generations of Americans watch as the executive branch flouts its accountability to the public and to the law, proves unable to 'win' an increasingly unpopular war, and refuses to acknowledge the reality of the war's downward spiral."

"It hurts to see Neil Jordan's name attached to something as deplorable as The Brave One," writes Ed Gonzalez at Slant. "You can't talk about The Brave One without bringing up Ms 45, yet it seems unnecessarily cruel to hold the riches of Abel Ferrara's classic B, about a woman who is raped twice (!) in one day and subsequently enacts revenge on any man who annoys the shit out of her, against this lousy corporate facsimile."

"If Jodie Foster weren't such a fiery, intensely engaging performer, nothing in her new thriller, The Brave One, would allow it to rise above the realm of mediocrity populated by direct-to-DVD genre quickies," writes Eric Kohn in the New York Press.

"Foster's feminist victimization complex seems to be looping around to meet Nixon and Agnew," suggests David Edelstein in New York. "Next she'll be hunting Commies for the FBI."

"The Brave One is among the year's more transgressive - even guilty - pleasures," declares ST VanAirsdale. But, also at the Reeler: "After two hours of hand-wringing, the moral of The Brave One comes clear: Killing a bunch of people can take a toll on your soul," notes Vadim Rizov. "Great. Bring back Bronson."

"Jordan - who was born in Dublin - also has a surprisingly strong grasp of what living in New York is like," writes Salon's Stephanie Zacharek. "The movie understands the way New Yorkers sometimes look after one another even when they're pretending they couldn't care less. And the movie's violence - particularly the attack sequence - is difficult to watch, but deftly handled. There's a lot to admire in The Brave One. It just doesn't cut as deeply as it needs to."

"The Brave One lacks the alchemy of Jordan's best work, which brings gender and race subtexts to the surface," writes Nicolas Rapold in the L Magazine. "Any success rests to a perilous extent on Foster's shoulders, because something about this American template clearly slips through Jordan's fingers (like an attempt at suggesting the centerless media-doubled society). All these distractions can't take away from the film as a mood piece - clenched and reeling."

"[T]he story's finale is riddled with staggering cop-outs that completely sidestep the hard questions about Erica's choices, hand-wringing voiceovers aside," writes Alonso Duralde at MSNBC.

"[T]his small, fierce woman's brute cheekbones are an axiom of modern American cinema," writes Ray Pride. "Like David Cronenberg's Eastern Promises, The Brave One is fearless even at its most foolish."

"Trapped in a no man's land between seriousness and pulp trash, it plays like a combination of Death Wish and The Hours," writes Kenneth Turan in the Los Angeles Times. "If that sounds like an awkward fit, it is."

"The line 'Bitch, is you crazy?' is uttered," notes the San Francisco Bay Guardian's Cheryl Eddy.

"[T]he creative marriage of Ms Foster and Mr Jordan is one made in heaven, admittedly in its most hellish precincts," writes Andrew Sarris in the New York Observer.

"An ungodly mash of revenge fantasy, 9/11 paranoia, and abysmal storytelling, The Brave One is only remarkable for the caliber of talent failing so spectacularly before your eyes," writes Bradley Steinbacher in the Stranger.

Erica "knows she's disintegrating, but if she can take some evildoers down with her, she's willing to relinquish her own morality," writes the AV Club's Tascha Robinson, and then adds: "(It's so tempting to see this as yet another metaphor for America's post-9/11 foreign policy - particularly the populace's reluctant, tacit acceptance of state torture - that it seems like it's time to found a new anti-war movement: 'Get the US out of Iraq to save American cinema from itself.')"

Earlier: "The Brave One."

"In a nearly quarter-century career spanning a dazzling array of genres, Neil Jordan has made several masterworks and a number of pictures that fascinate despite their flaws," writes Matt Zoller Seitz at the House Next Door. "The Brave One... occupies a unique place in his career. It's his first really bad movie - silly, confused, pandering, and in places, loathsome."

"The film put me in mind of another incident from the 70s," writes Time's Richard Corliss. "I worked for a woman whose 18-year-old daughter was bicycling through Central Park when a 15-year-old boy stopped her, stole her bike and killed her with a tire iron. The grieving mother's response to this atrocity was to write a letter to the Times asking for the murderer not to be taken down by vigilantes or executed by the state, but treated with justice and mercy. It probably wouldn't make a very good movie, but that woman was heroic. She knew that if wrongful violence begets righteous violence, we all become criminals. She was the brave one."

Posted by dwhudson at September 14, 2007 8:59 AM