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COURAGE UNDER BROADWAY!
THE BRAVE ONE
(16, general release)
*

Erica Baines (Jodie Foster is a NYC radio presenter with a bright; optimistic outlook on life. And why wouldn't she have? She has an interesting job; is living in what she describes as "The Safest big city in the world"; has plenty of supportive friends and is clearly in love with her fianc Naveen Andrews (David Kirmani). But her happy world is shattered to pieces when she and her husband-to-be are viciously attacked by three thugs one night whilst out walking their dog in Central Park. Naveen doesn't survive the attack while Erica ends up in hospital with a coma from which she emerges some weeks later.

But when she is informed that the love of her life is deceased, it not only breaks her heart but her spirit also making the healing process a much more painful & difficult one! Distraught with grief and paralyzed with fear Erica spends the coming weeks trapped in her own home allowing her body time to heal and dreaming of happier times with her dead lover. When she does eventually pluck up the courage to face the outside world she does so with immense trepidation & terror still haunted by images of the attack, nervously threading the streets of New York no longer feeling very safe!
The dread & heartache soon gives away to anger and disillusionment with the police and the lack of progress in her case. So Erica decides to take matters into her hands and buys a gun (a bit too conveniently for my liking) from a man who just happens to be standing in the gun store and happens to know a bit about guns. After witnessing a convenience store hold up where she haphazardly shoots and kills the perpetrator, she's understandably shocked and frightened at what she's just done.
But she soon gets a taste for killing which while still disgusting her yet leaves her feeling a strange sense of empowerment as she embarks on her own personal nocturnal vendetta against the "now increased" criminal elements of New York City and ultimately the perpetrators of the original crime! What I want to know is where were all the crimes and criminals hiding out in her blissfully happy life before the life-changing attack? Had New York just suddenly become violent overnight or was it always that way and somehow Erica had either didn't see it or chose to ignore it? These are just some of the many implausible scenario' that take place throughout the course of this movie directed by the charismatic Irish director Neil Jordan (The Crying Game

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