The Brave One Synopsis

I can't say that I didn't like the movie because there times where I was nervous and times where I kept hoping Jodie Foster wouldn't get killed. At the end of the movie though, I looked back and wondered where the rest of the film was. It was like attaching a few fancy peripherals (in this case a well formulated moral problem) to a very old computer, in this case the heart of the movie. It felt like the audience was watching a play of enormous heartbreak but from behind a screen, so that we could only see shadows vaguely moving around. That isn't to say Terence Howard and Jodie Foster didn't act well, it was more that what they had to do was one of those things that is so deeply internalized and private that no matter how believable the two stars were, the movie lacked the inner swirling humanity that wraps around us, sometimes choking us with doubt and fear and sometimes warms us and lets us see why we sacrifice who we are for another.
Jodie Foster's behavior is a linear exploration of the moral dilemma, gently raising the viewer's threshhold of moral certitude. The first scene shows us a woman who is deeply in love and about to married. This idyllic world is battered and destroyed, viciously depicted, scarring Foster and leaving her fiance dead. After this a skittish and paranoid Foster purchases a gun. This act is justified beyond reproach by the director. For Foster this is the only way to return to a world free of paralyzing fear, a world we all hope to never see, much less get trapped in. From there Foster becomes a vigilante of the most violent order. The scenes are an exploration of how we far we can with the dilemma still intact. The scenes play out like this; Jodie foster is trapped and must kill to save herself(completely justified self-defense), Jodie Foster through her inaction is forced to kill again in self-defense(passively acted to cause conflict), pro-actively sought out an opportunity to help a defenseless person but was then forced to kill out of self-defense, and lastly, Foster seeks an excuse, precipitating an aggressive confrontation, then killing in a more gruesome and personal manner, as a favor to a friend.
In every instance the victims of her vigilante one-woman death squad are clearly the people who should be off this planet. They are recognizable savages; vicious, completely inhuman and a bit too stereotypical. No one is sad that they die. In every instance killing is something she does only when she must. The director does a less than subtle job of ensuring that the ante is upped each time, letting us know that she is becoming more and more an active participant, a person who pursues situations, instead of allowing them to happen. The ending is a bloodbath and we see Foster relinquish her authority to murder those who should be murdered.
It smooths things out terribly by making sure none of her victims are in anyway people who would be missed. Only the most callous people would say that her behavior wasn't emotionally justified initially and then caught along in a gust of empowerment and security. Her actions harden her, understandably, until she acts like a cold-blooded killer, but she isn't, she is instead a woman whose life and psyche has been shattered and who must be cleansed. It is obvious one of her is worth the lives of all her victims.
This movie could not have made the moral dilemma less murky. It is pure and philosophical, with none of the dirt that makes real world dilemmas so frustrating or interesting. The movie will still prompt some thought, but thoughts that have been explored in a number of different guises. The acting is good and the movie will entertain for the interest in where the trip will end, but will leave you ultimately unsatisfied.

Irrelevance

Exams are such a difficult concept to grasp. Exams require that everyone take the same test to determine who truly understands the knowledge presented in the course and who simply skipped class and played Xbox 360 all day. The problem is that most tests are more similar than not. So those who are simply good at answering questions in a short amount of time(say those who are quick thinkers) can do quite well without having learned as much of the information, while those are slow thinkers(those who are methodical and calculating) suffer unnecessarily. Are tests meant to judge what type of student is superior? Are they meant to aid those who can think quickly and hurt those who are more careful? That being said, I realize that there are difficulties in finding other ways to test knowledge of the material. I really think someone should look into this though. Maybe Google or Wal-mart can come up with a better way to identify those who have learned the knowledge and skill sets taught by the class as opposed to those who have simply mastered the ability to take the standard college test/exam.