The Brave One

Over 30 years have passed since vigilante Charles Bronson took the law into his own hands in the hit picture Death Wish. Many will call The Brave One, in which the gender is switched and Jodie Foster goes on a similar killing spree, a postfeminist female version. And they will be missing the point. In a true shocker that will shatter your nerves and get you talking, Foster plays a late-night radio host whose whole life is turned around after she is viciously attacked and her fiancé (Lost's Naveen Andrews) is killed in a Central Park ambush by a group of thugs. Slowly she realizes there will be no justice unless she gets a gun and goes after the very kind of scumbag who put her in this state. Soon she is roaming the streets of an eerily dark and ominous New York City, paying back those she sees as evil, even if they aren't the actual attackers. As the Big Apple becomes enthralled with this "anonymous" serial killer, she begins to wonder if she has somehow morphed from victim into the kind of reprehensible person she is trying to stop. With its nagging questions about the nature of unchecked violence and the moral implications of challenging the laws of society, The Brave One becomes much more than just an exploitative exercise in bloodletting. It challenges the very core of what we want to be as a society. Foster commands the screen and delivers one of her finest performances as she travels to her dark side, matched by an understated and effective turn from Terrence Howard as the detective who may just be on to her game. It's a fascinating, timely, and downright scary thriller.