AIDS, CRACK, BERNIE GOETZ: The Brave One is generally (and unsurprisingly) a well-made and well-acted film, which turns out to be a strong portrayal of PTSD and one of the ways it can impact people. However, what bugged was not in the film itself, but rather the audience's reaction to the film. I think the film is intended to provoke the sort of reactions I had to Foster's acts of vigilantism--at best, ambiguous, and at times, revulsion. Instead, most of the audience responded to her blowing away "bad guys" with a very positive response. This isn't Death Wish, much as some audience members seemed to want it to be.
(Interestingly, it's also an appropriate companion to Jennifer Westfeldt's Ira & Abby, which I saw last weekend, and which demonstrates a decidedly different, yet ultimately equally effective, way of dealing with a subway mugging.)
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