Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Nov 16, 2011

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Nov 16, 2011

The Brave One is not merely the most morally repellent film of the year, but a contender for the stupidest.

| Sep 22, 2008

[A] dopey action movie featuring the contributions of people too talented to waste their time on something this risible.

| Original Score: 2/5 | May 1, 2008

Just a more superficially sober version of Death Wish.

| Original Score: C | Dec 6, 2007

What you can't deny is Foster's expertise at mixing vulnerability with an inner rage that half excuses what she is doing.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Sep 29, 2007

The film's final unforgivable fault is its sheer, plodding dullness.

| Sep 29, 2007

Alas, moral niceties are blown away in a frenzy of retribution, and a "controversial" ending undoes any plausibility.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Sep 29, 2007

Like Foster's character, Erica Bain, the movie makes a tortured show of conscience, then trades it in for a leather jacket and a semi-automatic.

| Sep 28, 2007

Neil Jordan ought to be doing more challenging material than this overblown, overwrought thriller that has only obvious points to make about the moral swamp that is urban vigilantism.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Sep 28, 2007

Beautifully played, the tantalising accretion of mutual understanding between Foster and Howard is one of the film's strengths, yet the plot machinations required to lever it into position would overstretch credibility in the clunkiest action flick.

| Original Score: 3/6 | Sep 28, 2007

It wants to be a modern Taxi Driver; it manages to be the new Falling Down, with Foster as fierce as ever.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Sep 28, 2007

The fire goes out long before the film ends.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Sep 20, 2007

I think The Brave One could have been a better film with a different ending, but it's still a well-crafted, thought-provoking story with outstanding performances.

Full Review | Sep 18, 2007

Unfortunately, with each bullet she discharges, credibility takes a hit.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Sep 18, 2007

It can never seem to decide if it's escapist action or social commentary and, as a result, it never commits to either.

Full Review | Sep 14, 2007

Foster does her best with a flawed story whose ending rings even less true than the rest of it.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Sep 14, 2007

Uncertainty helps keep The Brave One on its toes.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Sep 14, 2007

A violent action movie with a heart and soul. Watching it is difficult; forgetting it is more so.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Sep 14, 2007

You long for all this combined talent to be in the service of something more deserving than a retread of a story that has lost the edge it had 33 years ago.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Sep 14, 2007