The Brave One is rated R for violence and some nudity.  It is two hours and two minutes long.  Stars Jodie Foster, Terrence Howards and Naveen Andrews. 

Vengence is mine saieth Jodie Foster in a movie about citywide violence and revenge.  Erica Bain is a radio talk show host and she does all the talking.  She describes walking the city of New York and all the wonderful things that the city has to offer.  Then one night on a walk with her fiancee and her dog they get ambushed.  Both are severly beaten and the fiancee (played by Naveen Andrews) is murdered.  She is in the hospital for three weeks.  After this time gets a little skewed but the movie moves on quite well.  Erica gets a gun and a vigalantee is born.  A modern day Charles Bronson in Death Wish, and for the female of the species too.  Go girl.  Terrence Howard plays a straight detective who is befriended by Jodie Fosters character.  In the end he has to make a decision that will affect her life and possibly his own.

 For all those who didn’t like this movie I say I understand but Boo.  I thought this was a pretty okay movie.  The action was a little slow but the character of Erica Bain made you feel her pain enough so that you wish you had her tormented courage to go and get justice for those who might never see it otherwise.  There are several ways this movie could have gone, a Death Wise Remake or a Vigalante is Good story, but neither of those happened.  Jodie Fosters character is so tormented by what she does, but she knows she can’t stop, at least not until justice is served for her and her dead fiancee.  You feel sorry for her, but also scared and a little disgusted.  Terrence Howard gives another fine performance here and you feel for him as a tormented cop, who knows right from wrong and it tortured by the fact that he always has to uphold the “right” end of things.

My only real problem with this movie was that at times it was a little slow, and the beginning seemed to drag on a little bit.  I was wondering when we would get to the meat of the story when all we were getting was the happy life of a radio host/dj.  I thought the action scenes could have started a little earlier.  I wanted to see more of the damage, and a little more of the life of Terrence Howards character, who I felt we didn’t get enough information on to form a real opinion.  Like why did him and his wife divorce?  Was it because he was a good cop? 

I reccomend people watch this movie and wonder why there aren’t many vigalantees out there in the world.  With so much crime and injustice, is this movie a tip of an iceberg that is on the point of melting or falling apart.  Then again people probably asked the same questions about Death Wish.  This is a good movie, with an excellent performance by Terrance Howard and Jodie Foster.  Interesting.

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