The Brave One shouts at you a lot. If you haven’t already watched Jodie Foster’s much anticipated comeback performance in this film, expect to be taken aback by not just scenes that will jolt you out of your seats, but by a raw and rare performance by the 2-time Oscar-winning actress.

Foster plays New York radio host, Erica Bain, who seems to have everything in life worked out and in place, including a fabulous job that she loves and a fiancé, David Kirmani, played by Naveen Andrews (Lost, Bride and Prejudice), whom she holds dear to her heart. But all of these are put to risk when a tragedy takes place and rage and the desire for revenge overwhelms her and transforms her into a beastly being that even Erica herself would never have imagined herself drawing near to. A dark pursuit for justice begins. Nothing seems to be in her way except for Detective Mercer, played by Academy Award nominee Terrence Howard (Crash, Hustle & Flow), from the NYPD. In this precarious quest, Erica needs to distinguish the line that separates crime from justified murder while taking matters into her own hands.

Jodie Foster and the Role We’ve Been Waiting For

A role like Erica Bain who endures an immense degree of psychological trauma in such a mixture of action, drama, thriller and crime is one that Foster has always been famous for tackling and undoubtedly has a natural flair at pulling off fabulously. The Silence Of The Lambs, The Accused and Nell are all tangible testaments to that.

But it doesn’t take a film enthusiast to notice the roles haven’t exactly been working to Foster’s favour in recent years, including Flightplan, Panic Room and Inside Man, though her performances are still as intense and marvelous to watch and even saved some of these films’ box office performances.

It’s about time a role was written for Jodie Foster that would allow her to make a proper comeback to the film industry. And it seems the role of Erica Bain is what we’ve been waiting for. Foster gives a performance that will dawn upon us the realisation that Panic Room and Flightplan were just warm ups to her glorious return in The Brave One.

Foster did such a brilliant job with this role, encapsulating within and throughout her performance elements that keeps viewers captivated – from her endless range of believable solicitous expressions to the vast and drastic transformation that her character experiences, which few actresses of our time can pull off convincingly. She may not win the Oscar come February next year (we’re crossing our fingers for at least a nomination), but this is still going to be a performance we’

ll remember her by, alongside The Silence Of The Lambs and The Accused, both of which she was awarded the Academy Award for.

Bad Writers will Ride on Foster’s Fame

But it almost seems like The Brave One was made for Foster’s sake, either that or the production team was riding solely on her performance to earn the big bucks because the only really rewarding element is Foster (and maybe Neil Jordan’s smart direction and Terrence Howard’s above-average performance). Everything else seems to have been compromised in terms of logic, practicality, professionalism and art.

The weird pairing of Naveen Andews and Foster, for one, will leave you wondering what the casting director was thinking and what it is about Andrew’s portrayal as Foster’s fiancée that is worth the struggle she goes through in the film. Nevertheless, viewers will come to realise that it doesn’t really matter who it is that plays opposite Foster, for it’snot so much about the relationship between the two as it is the transformation that her character experiences that defines the film.

A string of irregularities and illogical parts also distracted the movie-going experience. The inconsistency between the number of shots Erica fires in her first attempt to kill someone and the number of shots heard in the audio replay is one example. The hype that the typical American press would draw towards a shooting in a train station was also absurd, together with Mercer’s magical ability to trace Erica’s every action in the crime scene during the investigative stage and Erica’s choice of venue for a radio interview –a crowded and noise-prone cafeteria.

With these careless hiccups, one can only assume that writers Roderick Taylor, Bruce Taylor and Cynthia Mort failed to think the story through thoroughly. Even the series of events that occur in the storyline’s almost mundane middle section, like Erica’s search for a mysterious girl and then for her final murder targets, which make sense when pieced together but just don’t gel all that well, can be attributed to that.

But All’s Well Ends Well

The only redeeming factor for the writers would be the semi-humourous and purely unexpected twist at the end, which made for satisfactory closure in the film. Besides that, they should be getting half of what they were originally allocated when the earnings are split to make up for the disturbingly unbelievable plot. Kudos to Neil Jordan for spicing up the middle chapters of the film with constant sudden flashbacks to shocking scenes shown earlier; scenes that possibly forced a scream or two out of us before and still haunt us the second time around.

Yes, indeed. The Brave One shouts at you a lot – from the sudden flashbacks and inconsistencies to loud, jolting scenes; from the dark aura that hangs within the film, to the suspense that comes with a handful of ambiguity and questions, and finally to Foster’s honest and realistic portrayal of anger, fear, anguish, and the extreme desire for revenge. There’s much that will scream at you to the extent that if you leave the theatre before the calming closure comes about, you’ll be left in a state of anxiety.

Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

Movie Details:

Opens: Oct 11

Running Time: 122 mins

Language: English

Cast: Jodie Foster, Terrence Howard, Naveen Andrews

Director: Neil Jordan