buhay freelancer

How many wrongs does it take to make a right? If you ask the makers of The Brave One, the answer is eight. That is the number of people Jodie Foster’s character — radio show host by day, vigilante by night Erica Bain — kills in this film after she and her fiancé are brutally beaten in the middle of a New York public park. She survives; her fiancé doesn’t.

It’s a disturbing answer, though, to a question that really asks whether the end justifies the means. A black and white answer would have been to say that another wrong doesn’t right a wrong, but The Brave One isn’t a black and white movie.

An in-depth chronicle of the effect a brutal crime has on a victim, The Brave One takes its viewers for an emotional ride. The movie opens by establishing Erica’s almost perfect pre-attack life: she has a successful radio show and will soon be married to a man she is passionately in love with (played by Naveen Andrews from Lost). But in one fateful night, a violent and seemingly random street crime changes her life forever.

She isn’t the same afterwards, deeply scarred and scared even to go out of her apartment. To cope and give herself a sense of security, she goes out and gets a gun. And as though the gun is a magnet for thugs, she soon finds herself faced with one petty goon after another, all of whom she keeps from doing others more harm by killing. With each kill, she gets stronger and bolder, and, surprisingly, her aim drastically improves.

Is she doing a service to the people of New York or not? Her listeners debate through phone calls to her radio show. She herself doesn’t know the answer to this, and constantly struggles between turning herself in and looking for the next criminal to take out.

Is she doing herself a favor? It isn’t clear. As Erica says on her show, one becomes a different person — a stranger — after a tragedy like what happened to her.

Of course, New York still has policemen, ineffective as the movie says they may be. Detective Mercer (Terrence Howard) tries to track down this vigilante while befriending Erica, whom he knows as a victim. He’s Erica’s antithesis: a right-wing cop who won’t cross the line even if it means risking the lives of more people.

Unfortunately, the movie is saddled with a weak story that becomes less and less plausible as the minutes slowly roll by. For a neophyte small woman going up hardened criminals, her kills leave little, if any, evidence and witnesses. It’s almost an advertisement for guns by not-so subtly implying that a gun will keep you safe even if you don’t know how to use one. The two-hour movie could have been tighter too, with fewer supporting characters and fewer scenes that serve only to establish weak subplots.

Foster is the film’s saving grace and is the one strong reason for you to go out and see this. A two-time Academy Award winner, she is the perfect actress to portray Erica as she delivers a powerful performance that pulls the audience in with her as she suffers, grieves and exacts revenge.

Is the film worth seeing? It’s a tough call. Foster is definitely worth seeing but the film raises questions that it provides disturbing answers to. And calling Foster’s character "The Brave One," as a seeming endorsement of her actions, doesn’t exactly provide much comfort.

This review appears in the 14-15 September 2007 issue of Businessworld Weekender.