Now Playing
Critics & Publications
Archives: A-Z Index
Advanced Search

Upcoming Release Calendar
Weekend Box Office
Film Awards & Top 10s By Year
All-Time High Scores
All-Time Low Scores
How Metascores Are Calculated
Discuss Film In Our Forums

sort by name

sort by score

38 12 Rounds
48 17 Again
76 Adventureland
48 Angels & Demons
54 Battle for Terra
xx Bruno
80 Coraline
40 Dance Flick
83 Drag Me to Hell
72 Earth
45 Fast & Furious
61 Fighting
34 Ghosts of Girlfriends Past
72 Gran Torino
73 Hangover, The
47 Hannah Montana: The Movie
51 Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs
54 Imagine That
41 Knowing
32 Land of the Lost
56 Monsters vs. Aliens
34 My Life in Ruins
51 My Sister's Keeper
46 Next Day Air
42 Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian
54 Observe and Report
25 Obsessed
48 Proposal, The
70 Public Enemies
61 Soloist, The
83 Star Trek
64 State of Play
55 Taking of Pelham 1 2 3, The
52 Terminator Salvation
35 Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
77 Under the Sea 3D
88 Up
43 X-Men Origins: Wolverine
34 Year One

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

sort by name

sort by score

67 $9.99
75 24 City
66 Adoration
74 Afghan Star
48 Alien Trespass
56 American Violet
82 Anvil! The Story of Anvil
57 Away We Go
81 Beaches of Agnes, The
62 Big Man Japan
28 Big Shot-Caller, The
78 Boys: The Sherman Brothers' Story, The
55 Brothers Bloom, The
82 Burma VJ: Reporting from a Closed Country
xx Call of the Wild
63 Cheri
62 Cherry Blossoms
63 Dead Snow
65 Departures
18 Downloading Nancy
58 Easy Virtue
70 End of the Line, The
77 Every Little Step
64 Examined Life
80 Food, Inc.
38 Gigantic
56 Girl from Monaco, The
67 Girlfriend Experience, The
87 Gomorrah
89 Goodbye Solo
63 Great Buck Howard, The
79 Harvard Beats Yale 29-29
xx Home
82 Hunger
91 Hurt Locker, The
16 I Hate Valentine's Day
81 Il Divo
54 Is Anybody There?
71 Jerichow
58 Julia
74 Lemon Tree
36 Life is Hot in Cracktown
40 Limits of Control, The
42 Little Ashes
64 Lymelife
50 Management
57 Merry Gentleman, The
66 Moon
35 New York
62 Not Forgotten
xx Offshore
78 O'Horten
64 Outrage
40 Paris 36
54 Pontypool
71 Pressure Cooker
52 Quiet Chaos
83 Revanche
67 Rudo y Cursi
86 Seraphine
65 Sex Positive
70 Shall We Kiss?
77 Sin Nombre
59 Sleep Dealer
74 Song of Sparrows, The
54 Stoning of Soraya M., The
82 Sugar
84 Summer Hours
61 Sunshine Cleaning
28 Surveillance
42 Tennessee
63 Tetro
64 Throw Down Your Heart
80 Tokyo Sonata
63 Tokyo!
70 Tony Manero
74 Treeless Mountain
88 Tulpan
74 Two Lovers
83 Tyson
83 U2 3D
60 Under Our Skin
69 Unmistaken Child
69 Valentino: The Last Emperor
22 What Goes Up
45 Whatever Works
57 Youssou Ndour: I Bring What I Love

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

Brave One, The
Warner Bros. Pictures


6.6

based on 33 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

based on 50 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie

FILM:

MPAA RATING: R for strong violence, language and some sexuality

Starring Jodie Foster, Terrence Howard, Naveen Andrews, Mary Steenburgen, and Nicky Katt

New York radio host Erica Bain has a life that she loves and a fiancé she adores. But all of it is taken from her when a brutal attack leaves Erica badly wounded and her fiancé dead. Unable to move past the tragedy, Erica begins prowling the city streets at night to track down the men she holds responsible. Her dark pursuit of justice catches the public's attention, and the city is riveted by her anonymous exploits. But with the NYPD desperate to find the culprit and a dogged police detective hot on her trail, she must decide whether her quest for revenge is truly the right path or if she is becoming the very thing she is trying to stop. (Warner Bros. Pictures)

GENRE(S):	Crime \| Drama
WRITTEN BY:	Bruce A. Taylor (& story) Roderick Taylor (& story) Cynthia Mort
DIRECTED BY:	Neil Jordan
RELEASE DATE:	DVD: February 5, 2008 Theatrical: September 14, 2007
RUNNING TIME:	119 minutes, Color
ORIGIN:	USA / Australia

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

ReelViews James Berardinelli

Not since "The Crying Game" has Jordan crafted as compelling a motion picture.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

Where did Hollywood get the conviction that audiences demand an ending that lets them off the hook? Foster doesn't let herself off the hook in The Brave One, and we should be as brave as she is.

Premiere Glenn Kenny

An intense New York-set thriller that manages to be both commercial and contemplative, kick-ass and quietly, disturbingly insinuating.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Tasha Robinson

The moody tone and carefully balanced drama turn a grubby premise into something unexpectedly elegant.

New York Post Lou Lumenick

The way-too-neat ending of The Brave One especially strains credulity, but it's worth watching for Foster's fiercely arresting performance.

Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips

The Brave One is "Death Wish" with a guilty conscience, and while it may be a bit of a hypocrite as vigilante thrillers go, the internal contradictions of the thing make for a very interesting picture.

Washington Post Stephen Hunter

It's hard to hate, because as a rabble-rouser it is superbly effective, driven forward by two powerhouse actors.

The Hollywood Reporter Michael Rechtshaffen

A vigilante drama boasting a powerful Jodie Foster performance and carefully weighted direction by Neil Jordan.

Village Voice Scott Foundas

Taken literally, almost everything that follows in The Brave One so seriously strains credibility (even by the standards of the genre) as to enter the realm of the absurd. Taken on the level of a menacing urban fairy tale, however--something akin to what Jane Campion was aiming for with "In the Cut"--it's strangely fascinating.

Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek

There's a lot to admire in The Brave One. It just doesn't cut as deeply as it needs to.

Austin Chronicle Steve Davis

A confounding movie on many levels. For all its sophistication and sensitivity, it turns out to be little more than an upscale B-movie about getting even.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Andy Spletzer

With The Brave One, Jodie Foster and director Neil Jordan shift the genre to the murky left, where right and wrong are not so black and white. In doing so, they have taken away the very thing that makes a vigilante movie work.

USA Today Claudia Puig

If only The Brave One had captured more of the complex nature of the fear and paranoia plaguing society since 9/11. Instead, it is a well-made but predictable take on the revenge fantasy thriller, with a female twist.

TV Guide Ken Fox

Regardless of the artistry involved (though the street-level anxiety of post-9/11 New York is far better evoked in Jane Campion's underrated "In the Cut," The Brave One ultimately never really strays from the same moral low road as "Death Wish."

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

Foster is electrifying as ego and id clash and the movie fires up with genuine provocation.

New York Daily News Jack Mathews

Not enough to overcome the proven axiom that although you can make a bad movie from a good script, you can't make a good one from a bad one.

Boston Globe Wesley Morris

The movie itself isn't nearly as interesting as whatever it is Foster is trying to work out for its two hours.

Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez

As far as its plot mechanics go, The Brave One belongs to the hallowed (if less-than-respectable) genre of exploitative revenge pictures.

Empire William Thomas

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

Variety Justin Chang

Foster’s pistol-packing turn as an avenging dark angel nearly sustains director Neil Jordan’s grim vigilante drama through a string of implausibilities and occasionally trite psychological framing devices, with deft support from Terrence Howard as a sympathetic cop.

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

Everything about Foster's ocular intensity is riveting, but little in this hushed vigilante drama makes sense.

Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy

As the film builds toward a ludicrous finale, it poses a question: Foster is a far better actor than Charles Bronson, and Jordan a much better director than Michael Winner, so why is The Brave One so much less satisfying than "Death Wish"?

Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey

At the film's inconclusive conclusion, the filmmakers strand Erica and Sean in the moral twilight.

Chicago Reader J.R. Jones

What might have been a serious drama about coming to terms with violence and loss turns into a crowd-pleasing and increasingly far-fetched remake of "Death Wish."

Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow

The whole thing turns into trash with flash.

San Francisco Chronicle Ruthe Stein

Jodie Foster and Terrence Howard are incredibly compelling and hold your attention despite Jordan's deliberately slow pacing.

Film Threat Pete Vonder Haar

Formulaic and creaky as a Harrison Ford action sequence, but sufficiently gussied up with good actors and a decent director so that you don’t entirely mind.

The New York Times A.O. Scott

Don’t be fooled. The Brave One, though well cast and smoothly directed, is just as crude and ugly as you want it to be.

New York Magazine David Edelstein

Foster’s feminist victimization complex seems to be looping around to meet Nixon and Agnew. Next she’ll be hunting Commies for the FBI.

Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan

Trapped in a no man's land between seriousness and pulp trash, it plays like a combination of "Death Wish" and "The Hours." If that sounds like an awkward fit, it is.

Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer

The end result, at best, is high-toned pulp.

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

The drama is repetitive rather than resonant, an over-calculated, under-ventilated studio production -- even paranoid thrillers need to breathe -- whose plot machinery grinds grim and coarse.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Liam Lacey

The film moves from cliché to cliché and hemorrhages blood and logic at an alarming rate.

The average user rating for this movie is 6.6 (out of 10) based on 50 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Tony B. gave it a6:
Jodie Foster, one of our more intelligent performers, is electrifying in this urban thriller. The sometimes too active cinematography gets in the way, and the pacing, especially in the beginning, needs to be picked up a notch or two..The ending is difficult to believe.

Rock F. gave it a3:
Yawn. I love Jodie Foster, but what was she thinking when she signed on for this dud? It starts out promisingly enough, but once she's packing heat, she stumbles into one bloodbath after another. Lame.

Philip H. gave it a2:
Confused is the only word that come to mind.

Jon F. gave it a6:
Pretty good, not a keeper. Slow throughout, ending suprised us. Good to watch - don't buy.

Chad S. gave it a7:
Nicole(Jane Adams) is only kidding when she refers to Erica's public display of affection towards David(Naveen Andrews), a man descended from Indians, as being "disgusting". The art gallery owner has an ironical lilt in her voice; she doesn't really hate her friend's coupling instinct to hug and kiss, after all, Nicole is east coast, a sophisticate, a card-carrying member of the intellentsia. Inter-racial relationships aren't supposed to freak her out. But not all walks of life share the same live-and-let-live mentality practiced by the broad-minded; for some, the very sight of a non-white male with his non-white hands all over a white female's body, is disgusting, sans italics. When "The Brave One" cross-cuts the couple's lovemaking with their savage beating, a correlation of cause-and-effect is made. They're being punshied. But by who? During the attack, no mention is made about either person's ethnicity by the perpetrators. The crime might not be racially motivated. But there's an inherent assumption by the audience that it is. The depiction of on-screen coital relations between racial disparates are relatively rare in mainstream film, so the editing has an unintended(or intended) effect of punishing the couple for engaging in physical love. As if "The Brave One" wasn't provocative enough, a cynic would suggest that David had to be non-white as a sort of license for Erica(Jodie Foster) to shoot black people in cold blood. She's not a racist because David was non-white. "The Brave One" isn't a racist film because Detective Mercer(Terrence Howard) is black. But what about you? Are you a racist?

Frank M. gave it an8:
Foster raises this revenge film to another level. She refuses to do the "bad ass" schtick and makes you really feel her loss, pain and rage.

Austin C. gave it a9:
This movie was great. You can see it on Comcast ON DEMAND for $4.99, I definitely recommend it.

Brave One, The Warner Bros. Pictures

Brave One, The
Warner Bros. Pictures