"The Brave One"

"Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned / Nor hell a fury like a woman scorned."
--William Congreve, "The Mourning Bride" (1697)

"Lay that pistol down, Babe. Lay that pistol down. Pistol packin' mama, lay that pistol down."
--Al Dexter, "Pistol Packin' Mama"

If Congreve thought a woman scorned was furious, he ain't seen nothin' until he's seen a pistol packin' mama whose boyfriend has been killed by street thugs. Especially one as portrayed so expertly by Jodie Foster in director Neil Jordan's "The Brave One," an otherwise ludicrous, gender-twisting turn on "Death Wish."

Foster plays Erica Bain, the hostess of what comes across as the world's most boring radio commentary show. Armed with a boom mike attached to a portable tape recorder (in this digital age?), she walks the streets of New York City, which she repeatedly refers to as "the safest city in the world," recording all kinds of sounds -- everything from birds chirping to jackhammers pounding. Then she returns to her studio where she ways whatever comes to her head while the sounds play in the background. The format of her radio show has nothing to do with the events in the movie except the film asks us to believe that this show makes her so well known that all she ever needs to say in public is "I'm Erica Bain," and everyone instantly goes "Radio star."

One evening Erica and her fiance, David (Naveen Andrews), are walking their dog in Central Park when they are viciously attacked by three thugs. The reason for the attack is not made all that clear but there is the implication that it's so one of the three can "record his first kill." David, in fact, is killed in the attack and Erica is so badly injured that she remains in a coma for three weeks.

She no longer feels safe in her city; in fact, she has problems walking out the front door of her apartment building. One day she does, however, skittishly making her way to the nearest gun store where she is told the law requires her to apply for a license first and that there's a mandatory waiting period. That's no good. If Erica is ever to go out in public again, she needs a gun now. But, it just so happens (as these things often do when the plot requirements are that this woman get a gun pronto) that a shady gun dealer overhears the conversation in the store and says he'll sell her a gun on the spot for $1,000 cash. Now this assumes that Erica, who up until this moment has been too afraid of what might happen to her to even leave the confines of her home, will make her first tentative trip outside with $1,000 cash in her pocket, but, who knows?

So now Erica has a gun and she quickly gets an attitude. Erica goes to the corner grocery to pick up a few items. Next thing you know, a guy burst through the door and shoots the cashier (who also happens to be the gunman's wife) to death. He's about to leave, thinking no one has seen what he's done, when Erica's mobile phone rings. Thus begins the cat-and-mouse you-walk-up-this-aisle-while-I walk-down-this-one bit until Erica shoots him right between the aisles. Next thing you know, Erica is on the only completely deserted subway in the history of New York City when she is accosted by two more thugs who want more from her than the directions to Madison Square Garden. Bang! Bang! They're toast. Fortunately for her, the subway's nexy stop is at the only completely deserted subway station in NYC, so she can make a clean getaway as the bodies tumble out of the open subway door onto the platform. Next she runs into a pimp and a prostitute he's kidnapped ...

Well, you get the picture. Suddenly this woman can't go anywhere without meeting the dregs of the earth who cry out for Erica to kill them.

All these shootings, plus the shooting of a gangland-figure's wife, are investigated by a detective Mercer (Terrence Howard) and his partner Detective Vitale (Nicky Katt) because, it appears, they are the only two homicide detectives in New York City. And because Detective Mercer, like all of New York City, knows immediately who Erica Bain is, he agrees to be the subject of an interview for her radio show. OK, sure, this last little twist is a gimmick but I'm glad it's there because the best scenes in the movie are the series of conversations between Foster as Erica and Howard as Mercer. And they are the best scenes solely because of the way these two fine actors pull them off. It made me really wish I could see them in a psychological tug-of-war movie that didn't involve something so exploitative as vigilanteism.

That's all I'm going to reveal about the narrative of "The Brave One" except, if you value your life, don't hold your breath waiting for an ending that works.

Frankly, this movie did not convince me that turning the avenger into a woman was enough of a reason to trot out revenge-thriller genre for one more trot around the track. My advice? "Lay that DVD down, babe."

Grade: C-