Roger Ebert

How many films have there been about victims of violence who turn into avengers? Charles Bronson made five. Kevin Baconís ìDeath Sentenceî was released two weeks ago. How are we supposed to respond to them? When Bronsonís kill count got above 50, why didnít the scales of justice snap? But now here is Jodie Foster, with a skilled co-star and director, to give us a movie that deals, really deals, with the issues involved.

Foster is such a good actress in thrillers: natural, unaffected, threatened, plucky, looking like she means it. And Neil Jordanís ìThe Brave Oneî gives her someone strong to play against. Terrence Howard and Foster are perfectly modulated in the kinds of scenes itís difficult for actors to play, where they both know more than theyíre saying, and they both know it.

Foster plays Erica, a talk jock on a New York radio station. Sheís engaged to a doctor named David (Naveen Andrews), theyíre in Central Park late one night, theyíre mugged, heís killed and sheís badly injured. When Erica is discharged, sheís shaking with terror. Her illusion of a safe city life is destroyed. And one day she buys a gun and learns to use it, and you can see fear turning into anger in her eyes.

Not long after, sheís in a late-night convenience store (note: midnight strolls in Central Park rank second only to all-night stores in their movie crime rates). A holdup takes place, thereís violence, she kills a guy to save her life, and she feels ≠ó well, how does she feel? Shaken, nauseous maybe, but certainly glad sheís alive.

Weíve started with one of those admirable National Public Radio types whose voice is almost maddeningly sane and patient, and now we have a woman (narrating the movie, sometimes) who sounds more like she doesnít work upstairs over the saloon but she does own a piece of it. Erica has never seen herself as capable of killing, and now she grows addicted to it, offering herself as defenseless bait for criminals and then proving how terribly mistaken they were.†††

These are the general parameters of all vengeance movies. And often thereís a cop on the case who grows curiously close to the killer. With Bronson, it was Vincent Gardenia. With Bacon, Aisha Tyler. With Foster, itís Terrence Howard, playing a detective named Mercer who is assigned to the original mugging, who chats with Erica, who observes there seem to be a lot of people in the city who would like to get even. ìYes,î she says, ìthere must be a lot of us.î Us. Curious word choice. Mercer hears it.

Now the movie becomes less about Ericaís killings and more about how they make her feel. And about how she and Mercer begin to feel about each other ó not in a romantic way, although that scent is in the air, but as smart, wary people who slowly come to realize they share knowledge they dare not admit they share.

Neil Jordan, the director (ìThe Crying Game,î ìMichael Collins,î ìBreakfast on Pluto,î ìMona Lisa,î ìThe Good Thiefî), often makes movies about characters who are not who they seem, and about those who wonder if they can trust them. His characters are not deliberately deceptive, but have been pushed into their roles by their lives, and donít see a way out. Often you sense in them a desperate urge to confess.

That kind of psychological suspense is what makes ìThe Brave Oneî spellbinding. The movie doesnít dine out on action scenes, but regards with great curiosity how these two people will end up. The movieís conclusion has a slight aroma of a studio rewrite to it; Iím not saying Jordan and his writers did revise it, but that the strict logic of the story should lead in a different direction. Where did Hollywood get the conviction that audiences demand an ending that lets them off the hook? Foster doesnít let herself off the hook in ìThe Brave One,î and we should be as brave as she is.
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Roger Ebert, a Pulitzer Prize-winning film critic, is a syndicated columnist based at the Chicago Sun-Times.