The Brave One (2007 film)
The Brave One | |
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![]() Theatrical release poster | |
Directed by | Neil Jordan |
Written by | Roderick Taylor Bruce A. Taylor Cynthia Mort |
Produced by | Susan Downey Joel Silver |
Starring | Jodie Foster Naveen Andrews Terrence Howard |
Cinematography | Philippe Rousselot |
Edited by | Tony Lawson |
Music by | Dario Marianelli |
Production companies | |
Distributed by | Warner Bros. Pictures |
Release dates |
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Running time | 122 minutes |
Countries | United States Australia |
Language | English |
Budget | $70 million[1] |
Box office | $170 million[1] |
The Brave One is a 2007 American psychological thriller film directed by Neil Jordan from a screenplay written by Roderick Taylor, Bruce A. Taylor and Cynthia Mort. The film stars Jodie Foster as Erica Bain, a New York City radio host who along with her partner, is severely beaten by thugs, leading to the latter's death. Terrified for her safety, she buys a pistol. Armed with the gun, she undergoes a personality transformation and becomes a vigilante, shooting a number of criminals. Detective Sean Mercer (Howard) investigates the vigilante shootings, which lead him closer and closer to Bain. The film features Naveen Andrews, Terrence Howard, Nicky Katt, Zoë Kravitz, Mary Steenburgen and Luis Da Silva in supporting roles.
The Brave One was released in the United States on September 14, 2007. The film received mixed reviews from critics who acclaimed Foster's performance but criticized its execution and was a box office success, grossing $170 million on a budget of $70 million. At the 65th Golden Globe Awards, Foster received a nomination for Best Actress Motion Picture in a Drama.
Plot
As radio show host Erica Bain (Jodie Foster) and her Malayali Nasrani fiancé David (Naveen Andrews) are walking their dog at night at Stranger's Gate in New York City's Central Park, they are attacked by three violent criminals who film the whole attack on their phones. David dies from his injuries, and Erica, while seriously injured, survives. Angry and traumatized, she attempts to purchase a gun. Terrified and unwilling to wait the month required to obtain a gun legally, she buys a Kahr K9 semi-automatic pistol from a black market gun dealer.
When she stops at a convenience store, a man comes in screaming at the female cashier for not allowing him to see his kids, and shoots her. The killer then hears Erica's cell phone ringer, while attempting to clear out the till, and stalks her in the aisles. Just as the killer is about to find her, Erica is overcome with fear and shoots through the aisles and kills him. On another night, two men harass and threaten passengers in a subway car. The passengers all leave at the next stop except Erica. When the men, amazed that she was not threatened enough to leave, take it as a challenge and threaten her with a knife, Erica shoots them both dead. Another night, Erica attempts to save a prostitute by threatening the woman's pimp with her pistol. When he attempts to run them down with his car in retaliation, Erica shoots him in the head, causing his car to run over the prostitute. The prostitute is injured, but lives, and is taken to the hospital. All the while, Erica attempts to track down the men who killed David.
She strikes up a friendship with Detective Sean Mercer (Terrence Howard), who is investigating the vigilante crimes and who is initially unaware of her role in the deaths. Erica, in trying to find out if the detective is close to solving her case, as well as the vigilante killings, pretends to want to interview Mercer. During the interview, the detective asks her how she pulled it back together after her tragedy. She replies that she did not, and she had to become a different person from the one she was before. They talk several times after.
Erica and her boss, Carol, enter an elevator together in their office building. In the elevator, she overhears two men talking about the vigilante killer.
Erica's boss then gets her to take calls on her radio show to solicit the public's opinion on the vigilante killings. The various responses almost get her to confess to the killings, but once at the police station, she is unable to bring herself to do so. Mercer tells Erica about a criminal he has been pursuing for a long time, who has allegedly committed several murders, but Mercer is unable to bring him to justice.
When Erica kills the suspect that Detective Mercer had long been after, Mercer comes to suspect her as the killer. He attempts to set a trap for Erica by taking her along with him to interview the prostitute she had saved before, but the prostitute does not let on that she knows Erica. When Mercer is finally able to interview one of the subway car passengers, he gets a description of the probable vigilante, and learns that the person is a female rather than male as previously suspected. When the police bring in Erica to identify one of the suspects in her attack, she recognizes one of them, but does not identify him. After, Mercer meets Erica for coffee, during which he hints that he suspects her as the vigilante.
Informed by the police that they found her engagement ring at a pawn shop, she manages to hunt down a name, address and phone number at the pawn shop. With the phone number, she is able to track down one of the attacker's ex-girlfriends, who witnessed the whole attack via a video recording on a cellphone, but is too frightened to reveal information, fearing a similar reprisal. However, she forwards the video recording of Erica's attack to Erica's phone. Erica almost breaks down on seeing the video, then forwards it to detective Mercer. Erica, now armed with positive visual identification of all three attackers, is able to track them down.
At the climax of the film, Erica finds and confronts the men responsible for David's murder. She kills two, finding and releasing her dog in the process (which they had stolen and kept after the attack) and struggles with the third. Mercer arrives on the scene just as the third attacker had taken the upper hand and disarmed Erica, holding her in a choke-hold, and attempts to arrest him. Erica then retrieves her weapon and attempts to execute the attacker. Mercer persuades Erica to lower the gun, but after looking into her begging eyes, hands her his own for her to use a legal weapon to kill the last attacker. The attacker begs to be arrested, instead, insisting that it is Mercer's job to do so, Erica then executes her attacker. Mercer insists that Erica should wound him to help frame the attackers as being behind the vigilante killings. Mercer places Erica's gun in the last attacker's dead hand and Erica leaves the scene, eventually being joined by her dog in Central Park.
Cast
- Jodie Foster as Erica Bain
- Terrence Howard as Detective Sean Mercer
- Naveen Andrews as David Kirmani
- Nicky Katt as Detective Vitale
- Zoë Kravitz as Chloe
- Mary Steenburgen as Carol
- Luis Da Silva as Lee
- Jane Adams as Nicole
- John Magaro as Ethan
- Dana Eskelson as police sketch artist
Release
Box office
In its opening weekend in the United States and Canada, the film was #1 at the box office, grossing $13,471,488 in 2,755 theaters.[2] As of December 29, 2007, the film has grossed $170,087,663 worldwide—$66,793,804 in the United States and Canada and $103,993,859 in other territories.[1]
Critical reception
The film received mixed reviews from critics. Rotten Tomatoes gives it a score of 43% based on 183 reviews.[3] On Metacritic, the film had an average score of 56%, based on 33 reviews.[4]
Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film 31⁄2 stars (out of 4); saying Foster and Howard "are perfectly modulated in the kinds of scenes difficult for actors to play, where they both know more than they're saying, and they both know it."[5]
Awards and nominations
The film received one Golden Globe nomination when the nominees for the 65th Golden Globe Awards were announced by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association. Foster was nominated for Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture - Drama.[6]
See also
References
- ^ a b c "The Brave One (2007)". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved December 29, 2007.
- ^ "The Brave One (2007) - Weekend Box Office". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved September 17, 2007.
- ^ "The Brave One". Rotten Tomatoes. Flixster. Retrieved September 18, 2007.
- ^ "Brave One, The (2007): Reviews". Metacritic. CBS Interactive. Retrieved September 14, 2007.
- ^ Ebert, Roger. "The Brave One Movie Review & Film Summary (2007) - Roger Ebert". rogerebert.suntimes.com.
- ^ "HOLLYWOOD FOREIGN PRESS ASSOCIATION 2008 GOLDEN GLOBE AWARDS FOR THE YEAR ENDED DECEMBER 31, 2007". goldenglobes.org. December 13, 2007. Archived from the original on December 14, 2007. Retrieved December 13, 2007.
External links
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/4/4a/Commons-logo.svg/30px-Commons-logo.svg.png)
- 2007 films
- 2000s crime drama films
- 2000s psychological thriller films
- American films
- American crime drama films
- Australian films
- Australian crime films
- Australian drama films
- English-language films
- Films scored by Dario Marianelli
- Films about radio people
- Films about revenge
- Films directed by Neil Jordan
- Films produced by Joel Silver
- Films set in New York City
- Silver Pictures films
- Vigilante films
- Village Roadshow Pictures films