This review by Lisa Kennedy from the Denver Post about "The Brave One" gave me a more in depth picture about the movie than the other reviews posted and also had the same opinion as I. While I have not seen the movie this review makes me want to see it even more. She goes into how as an individual person on a moral level this movie asks some very interesting questions of humanity. The movie makes you root for the main character Erica but also condemn her as well. “The Brave One” looks, at least to me, like something worth watching. In the beginning in order to help portray Erica’s feelings they show in graphic detail her and her husband being mugged from one of the muggers’ camcorders. After this, it becomes a story of her trying to get her life back, but she as a person changes. In one of the trailers it shows her talking to a cop who was asking her how a person deals with something like a mugging and she says she became a different person. After she realized that she could never go back to normal she started looking for revenge and then became a vigilante. “The Brave One” offers a window into the dark parts of human nature as we see her begin to slowly rid the streets of crime by killing the people that commit them, in a completely lawless fashion.
Erica, throughout the story, is trying to deal with her increasing alienation of herself and what she is becoming and what she is doing. You come to realize that throughout the movie that it is not completely the mugging that is changing her; it is as Lisa would put it “it is because of not-so-extraordinary circumstances that her old self is being lost to her.” She is loosing herself to her fear and revenge. Her neighbor who seems to be the “rote wise black woman meant to mammy Erica back to righteousness” has a past and brings up the concept that maybe it is braver to not be violent. She brings into question who the title of the movie really is describing.
Some of the bad things about the movie are that the movie unfolds too slowly. Most of the film is meant to be a thinking film more than an action film. Some of the dialog could also use some work. The “cat-and-mouse” game between Erica and the cop could have been done better. Though, I like action movies I still think this movie would be good to watch because I think it will give me something to think about during and even after the movie has ended. If I can get over the slowness of the movie I think it will give me good food for thought.
2 comments:
i like the review. i also want to see that movie and reading your critiqe on it made me wanna see it for sure. i like how u show'd lots of good about the movie but some bad things such as it unfolds very slowly which for me would get a little annoying but may give more time for thinking.. great reviw, hope u see the movie soon!!
Greg: Nice job overall -- your careful consideration of the review shines through. Toward the end of your post you made it sound almost as if you HAD seen the movie, letting the critic speak for you. Other than that, though, good work.
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