Reviewed by Katherine Ramsland

Anything boys can do, girls can do better. In other words, let's not cut out the women for roles as action-hero vigilantes. Even so, it's not necessarily a badge of distinction. Such films are usually just self-righteous gore-fests that make people itching for power feel better. It's not quite that simple in The Brave One.

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Jodie Foster ably plays Erica Bain, a small-time radio host in Manhattan engaged to be married (her profession is a convenience for all the voice-overs). She's never been violent or a victim of violence, and has largely skirted New York's seedy side. But one evening she and her fiancée, David (Naveen Andrews), walk their dog in Central Park, where a confrontation with nasty thugs leaves her man dead and Erica hospitalized. She eventually heals on the outside, but on the inside she's different: who she once was, with all her attitudes about safety and threat, are part of her idyllic past.

Jodie Foster Stars in The Brave One

A petite, slender woman, Erica is now acutely aware of how little control many individuals have against predators, and the more the creeps get away with their crimes, the bolder they grow. The result is that people like Erica fear going out. But she loves New York and does not wish to be thus conquered. Armed self-defense seems to her the only realistic answer, and it's but a short step for Erica from acquiring an illegal weapon to actively ridding the world of the dirty rats that infest it. She takes more risks, growing bolder, but in the process she becomes less aware of the beauty and poetry she used to cherish. ("Every murder leaves a hole," says a wise neighbor.) Inevitably, Erica's own violent acts attract the attention of the police, who have their own issues with impotent laws, and this crossing of paths between her and them is both predictable and surprising.

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