The Brave One (2007)

"The Brave One" is an implausible love letter to the American God-given right to kill, courts be damned. It also takes great liberties in falsely depicting New York City as a modern Babylon.

Jodie Foster is Erica Bain, a radio journalist pummeled by Central Park thugs, whilst her lover (Naveen Andrews of "Lost") is murdered. Angry, hurt and abandoned by indifferent police investigators, Bain at night seeks out criminals, blasting them with guns or tossing them off buildings. She's Batman unhinged. Without the rubber suit, or gravely voice. Terrance Howard is the detective investigating Foster's "Death Wish" spree, waving the flag that citizens should never take the law into their own hands.

The film is a stunningly hypocritical dud: American flags are shown throughout in key scenes as, I can only guess, a criticism that our nation is lost in an out-of-control bloodlust. Yet, "The Brave One" celebrates that bloodlust as if it were "Gladiator" as the thoughtful, coherent Howard suddenly reverses course and joins Foster's victim in her showdown with those park thugs. He even asks her to shoot him in a scene so bad Stallone would be embarrassed. Talk about blood lust.

Join the NRA now! Shoot, Erica, shoot! How Foster got into this brainless film I don't know. D