The Brave One

Neil Jordan’s The Brave One casts Jodie Foster as Erica Bain, a New York City radio show host whose life is torn apart by a violent mugging, so much so that she buys a gun and goes ape shit on the male criminals she constantly sees terrorizing city residents. This isn’t a kitschy, grindhouse-style, femme vengeance thing; it’s Jordan’s attempt to re-evaluate a giant, Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver—a film in which Foster of course starred, as a disturbingly precocious teenage prostitute. And so Foster is an ideal Travis Bickle for Jordan: the Bain character is a riposte to Foster’s arguably exploitative connection with Scorsese (a scene between Bain and a young, stoned prostitute is extra-resonant in this respect) and a consummation of Foster’s iconic roles in the late ’80s and early ’90s. Her cat-and-mouse game with Detective Mercer (an excellent Terrence Howard), for instance, is a clever volte-face of the one Clarice played with Lecter. The Brave One isn’t flawless; unlike, um, vintage Scorsese, the film can feel forced, too often kowtowing to the crass Hollywoodisms it might have easily snubbed (two pivotal scenes are absolutely marred by the same daft Sarah McLachlan song). Still, The Brave One fills a void. Not only is Bain a largely non-sexualized female superhero (the title, even, has a comic book-ish ring to it), but she is also, simultaneously, that rarest of rarities—a female anti-hero, embodying a fierce, Nietzschean, ultra-cinematic concept of personal justice. SEE IT NOW

The Brave One is now playing at Rainbow Market Square (80 Front St. E.), Scotiabank Theatre (259 Richmond St. W.), the Varsity (55 Bloor St. W.) and others.