The Brave One

So, turns out? Intelligent, affluent, left-wing people's stance on vigilantism... is pretty much the same one as that of the traditional, red-blooded conservative male kind, only more insidious because it thinks it's subtle. Both Neil Jordan and Jodie Foster clearly think they've made something revolutionary here, something nuanced and insightful, but it couldn't possibly more contrived and over the top, from the convenient "Es La Ley" sign all too obtrusively hung somewhere in the frame before Foster's first murder to Foster's ponderous, pretentious purple prose on her radio show. I can enjoy a dumb movie on occasion - what I can't stand is a dumb movie that thinks it's smart.


Weird thing is, just before the end of the movie, I had no idea what I would say about it. Well, that's not quite right, I had plenty of things to say, I just didn't know what the conclusion would be. The star rating. But ten minutes thinking it over afterwards was all it took to make up my mind. So yeah, my first pan? Coming right up.