The Brave One with Jodie Foster
I still like Jodie Foster. I still see her movies. We just saw her new movie called The Brave One. It was directed by Neil Jordan. The cinematography was excellent, the story compelling, and the acting was very tight.
I have a problem with revenge stories though. No matter how apparently justified revenge violence might seem, it is still brutal. The brutality of the revenge in the movie made me unable to laugh when she exacts revenge. Most of the theater roared in laughter at a few points. I could only wince at her vigilante-ism. She was a somewhat unwilling vigilante but a vigilante nonetheless. It was still soul hardening in its coldness. Bad guy dead, it doesn’t make me feel better, if we have to sacrifice too much of ourselves. She talked about it creating a hole in her but in the end I felt the film wanted you to sympathize with her and applaud her “heroic” efforts.
The most seductive performance was that of Terrance Howard. His character was the most sympathetic, even if he bought into the “heroism” at the end.
I do believe that being bombarded with images of extreme violence desensitizes us to violence, but not in a “this film should be banned” way. I still think there are reasons that are valid for making films of a graphic nature, but I draw the line at laughing and cheering when Mr. Bad Guy gets shot in the eye in full view of the camera.
the ultra-violence ushered in by directors like tarantino has really desensitized us to the images we see in the movies, which are really horrific sometimes. glad you still have a humanistic perspective. i’ll put the movie on the netflix queue for 2008
I remember seeing Reservoir Dogs when it first came out and thought, this style is going to be big, it’s going to be a disaster for us culturally. Then came Pulp Fiction etc. I guess people who work in certain professions have a hard time dismissing the violence, doctors and teachers like us, because on some levels we are never one degree of separation from it. The film was not as graphic as RD or PF but I like Neil Jordan as a director and I thought he made better films.
I have disagreed with a few friends over a French movie called “Irreversible”. I think it was too much. I just can’t see that there are many positives that outweigh the unforgettable negatives. Why did such a movie need to get made?
If you need something upbeat, here’s two movies Mike and I recommend. Both are salutes to our coming of age years, the 60’s. That’s “In the Shadow of the Moon” and “Across the Universe.”
We’ll check those out. It’s not that I need something upbeat, we saw 2 Days in Paris and Death at a Funeral and they were funny, but I was surprised by the Jodie Foster movie. She used to make provocative, one of my favorite words, movies but now I think she is making a lot less interesting stuff.
The Dreamers was an interesting coming of age movie about Paris in 1968. Maybe a little predictable but since so many Americans don’t know what happened in Paris in 1968 it is worth seeing anyway.