Ms. 45 2007? Jodie Foster and her point-n-shoot.
You kind of want to like this film, because you appreciate Foster’s mini-genre of woman-alone-against-a-threatening-world;Terrence Howard’s twinkly, tear-eyed, shiny-jelly-bean cuteness; and the general ’70s-era throwback Ms. 45 tone of the entire outing. Nothing’s sexier than a gal with her gun.
But who knew Foster and director Neil Jordan were so intent on remaking 1976’s Taxi Driver for the ’00s? And how strange is it that so many of the once-grimy-Manhattan-based locales seem to be shot in Brooklyn? Thought-provoking that Foster and co. might re-imagine Iris, the child-prostitute character she so memorably played in Taxi Driver, as a prime-time radio-host cross between Terry Gross and Joe Frank who, after a traumatic encounter with deadly urban violence, finds herself reaching for her revolver again and again and again. But what next, The Warriors reset in Williamsburg? Indie-kid gangs with baseball bats rather than trucker hats?
Face it, NYC ain’t the scumpot – love it or leave it! – it used to be, making it frustrating for all Scorsese-ites who wanna revisit the bad ole days of Bernard Goetz. The Brave One blatantly references its inspiration’s Bernard Herrmann score. The initial bodega shoot-out is a dead-ringer for Travis Bickle’s initiation into gun violence in TD, with an abused-wife twist, and the final firefight cops Bickle’s bloody, uterine-like journey through the deep-red halls of a bordello. Could be intriguing, no? Except that this pro-vigilantism-in-the-guise-of-pro-victim screed really doesn’t find the complexity or lyricism of its gritty forebear. Or even the gore-hungry gutsiness of Death Wish.
P.S.: The most shocking part of seeing The Brave One at a Sundance Kabuki preview screening had to be the bookish yet blood-thirsty audience that cheered every time Jodie blew away bad guys. Shades of that recent Western Addition father-son vigilante shooting-runover nearby.