![]() ![]() ![]() But they are fundamentally different, and The Brave One is the work of a filmmaking team with the script for the first kind of revenge film and the desire to make the second kind. Now, both of those kinds of film have their place, I certainly don't want to argue otherwise. The problem is that almost all of Jordan's films 'til now have been artsy little chamber dramas in the guise of genre films, and if there's one thing that you'd really rather keep your violent revenge fantasy from being, it's "artsy." That implies that you actually intend for people to take your film very seriously, and if you want people to take your film seriously, you had better not make a film as casually racist and morally diabolical as The Brave One.īroadly speaking, a revenge film can come in two flavors: rousing and pandering, playing to the crowd's blood lust and giving us our sleazy thrills ( I Spit on Your Grave), or hand-wringing studies of guilt and ambivalence that remind us of the terrible psychic toll of committing any murder, even a just one ( Munich). That's mostly what's going on here: Erica Bain is a bit too "successful New York art-type" to be a schlub, but she is awfully low-key and fatigued and sad, even before her grim encounter with the hooligans. The Brave One is sort of trashy, and it's sort of exploitative, but it is not even a little bit zesty, and this proves to be the film's undoing.Ī quick glance at Neil Jordan's CV reveals that he makes one kind of movie, or perhaps I should say he makes many kinds of movies that all have the same mood: a kind of sad fatigue plaguing low-key (and typically low-class) schlubs. Death Wish 3, the kind of bad movie that disproves the existence of a loving God). Now, Death Wish is not a very good movie, but there's a zesty trashiness to its exploitation that makes it kind of fun if you're in exactly the right mood (unlike e.g. Three weeks later, she comes out of it and goes vigilante on the city's ass, killing anybody who makes her feel "unsafe." The plot is 100% pure Death Wish pablum: Erica Bain (Foster), NPR-esque radio personality and chronicler of New York's romantic history of dilapidation and decay, is out walking with her comically ideal fiancé (Naveen Andrews), when he gets beaten to death and she winds up in a coma. In fact, it's fairly easy to figure out what attracted everyone to this project, and why they thought it was going to turn out to be a really powerful study of violence and catharsis in America. So the general bland badness of their first-ever collaboration, The Brave One, is not just disappointing, it feels like an active betrayal. ![]() Now, I loves me some Jodie Foster, and I loves me some Neil Jordan almost as much. Update: Thanks to everyone who caught the weird cut-and-paste error in the sixth paragraph. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |