The Brave One

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CZ223

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I just saw this movie and all I can say is wow! In my opinion it was a great movie. The theater was pretty much silent for the entire movie except for the occasssional "yeah" when the BG got what was due him, and not much of that. Now, the movie I watched was, in my opinion a sad commentary on how people who live in New York city are forced to rely on others for their safety. It was also apparent to me that people who chose not rely on the police for their safety are pretty much forced to become a criminal themselves if they choose to carry a gun. Now Jody foster did become a Vigilante, taking the law into her own hands so, it did go beyond the realm of self defense. When she tried to buy a gun legally after being nearly beaten to death she was told that first she needed a license and then it would take thirty days to get the gun. She was of course followed out of the gun store by an unscrupulous character who sold her a gun "on the street".

Now, I am not a lawyer and I do not know all the laws pertaining to concealed carry in NYC but I think that to describe it as being "difficult at best" would not be an overstatement. I did not think that this movie portrayed the gun owning public in a bad light although I am sure that is exactly what some of the people in that theater saw. What I hope that most of the people who see this movie will realize is that you can not depend on others for your safety, you must rely on yourself. I think that message came through loud and clear even if that wasn't the intention.

Now I am sure that some will disagree with me and see only the anti-gun propaganda, but I liked it anyway. I hope others will agree with me that this movie documents just how vulnerable an unnarmed citizenry really is. Without trying to go any deaper I will say it aagin, I liked it.:D
 
My take on it

I saw this movie tonight as well, and I think it was pretty good. It does drag on at times, but is otherwise entertaining. I'd probably see it as a matinée if I had to do it over.

The only problem I had with the film was the ultimate message. While most movies have an underlying theme that tries to be righteous, the ending seemed to endorse police corruption and vigilantism. This was NOT just a movie about self-defense.

I know, I know...its a remake of Death Wish. I guess Charles Bronson was such a surreal character you left the theater knowing it was frivolous entertainment.

The film was SO professionally done and Jodie Foster is SO good, you come away thinking there should be some wisdom found here. There isn't.
 
Everyone here got their Jockeys in a bunch over Foster's comments on the Daily Show. So, I decided to view the movie and see what its message was.

Well, it was an okay movie. Not exactly a new theme, but done reasonable well.

I did not find it to be anti-gun or anti-self defense. At the most, it was anti-vigilante. *If* the film could be faulted, it might be for conflating those issues by not making a clear enough distinction.

Still, every time Foster popped a bad guy, the audience cheered. Maybe we weren't sophisticated enough to get the nuanced message.

See it yourself and share your review, if you want.

K
 
From Foster's interview with Entertainment Weekly:
Entertainment Weekly- There's a rallying moment in The Brave One when you stick a gun in a bad guy's face and say, ''I want my dog back.'' How are you going to feel about the audience cheering on your character as she starts hunting people down?
JODIE FOSTER: It's shameful, but that's human and that's who we are as human beings. There will be unsophisticated people who see a sophisticated movie...
<snip>
E.W.- What do you think is the larger social commentary of The Brave One, which in some ways plays as a straight-up Dirty Harry revenge movie?
J.F.- Here's my commentary: I don't believe that any gun should be in the hand of a thinking, feeling, breathing human being. Americans are by nature filled with rage-slash-fear. And guns are a huge part of our culture. I know I'm crazy because I'm only supposed to say that in Europe. But violence corrupts absolutely. By the end of this, her transformation is complete. ''F--- all of you, now I'm just going to kill people with my bare hands.''
http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20051361_20051365_20054140,00.html
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I want to have some sympathy because of the mess with Hinckley, but she is clearly not on our side.
 
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Saspic

Thank you for posting that, I won't watch the Daily show and don't read entertainment weekly. I did not know that she was anti-gun but I suspected as much. I have given up on not watching movies by by people who hate guns personally but use them in movies to line their pockets. The list of anti gun actors is too long and I would never get to see a decent film again. The upside of that is this. Someone who sees this movie will go out and buy a gun becauseof this movie. They will do so no out of rage and hate but because of the other message that this movie sends which is that you can not count on the police to protect you. As for the quality of the writing and the acting, no it wasn't a Charlie Bronson shoot em up although the Death wish theme was visible. I believe that this was actually a better film than the old Death Wish movies (good thing you guys can't shootme over the computer:evil:0, even though I really loved those films as was growing up.
 
Ya Know...

....didn't Bernie Goetz get what amounted to was a slap on the wrist for capping some scumbags on a New York subway when they tried to rob him?

I mean, carrying a concealed weapon, illegally obtaining a weapon, illegal use of lethal force etc etc, and didn't he just get a fine or some negligible sentence when in theory he could be growing old gracefully in jail.

Maybe it was a different time period in New York (with 2000 murders a day even the most liberal gun grabbers can sometimes look the other way) but I wonder how much jeopardy you could be in . As a legal citizen, clean record, pays taxes (white probably helps :scrutiny:) using an "illegal" firearm in a street confrontation agains multiple bad guys (with rap sheets the size of a phone book).

Especially in light of the court case winding its way through Washington now :evil:
 
Rabidly anti-freedom

Foster is an intellectual mess. She doesn't seem to grasp the basics, (much less the nuances), of human will, American Thought, or certainly liberty and freedom. She's clueless about the Second Amendment.

I'm not going to support someone who won't stand up for Human Rights.
 
Theatre stayed quiet here too,till it turned to vigilantism,which seems to have struck a deep seated yearning for justice. Missed the police corruption scene,unless this refers to the officer"taking one for the home team" (justice) instead of for his legal obligations. Of course this seemed to be the bedrock of a lifetime of having a significant other that could be depended on to cover his back, instead of cowering there, a situation not to be sneezed at in NYC, or anywhere else! Hey; I watch movies with R Crowe, Jodie aint half so bad!
robert
 
My gun-disliking wife (not anti, just doesn't like them) was outraged that the Foster character would have had to wait 30 days for a permit. I pointed out that she would have been unlikely (to say the least) to have gotten one in NYC anyway. Got her thinking... :D
 
The_Shootist said:
....didn't Bernie Goetz get what amounted to was a slap on the wrist for capping some scumbags on a New York subway when they tried to rob him?
Click to expand...
He was initially indicted on attempted murder (!) and other charges but was later acquitted when he successfully argued self-defense. As I recall his biggest problem was his alleged quote just before firing a subsequent shot at one of his assailants ("you don't look so bad, here's another"). Something to bear in mind when shooting to "stop the threat".

He subsequently faced a civil suit by one of the assailants and lost, leaving him financially destitute. Something else to bear in mind if you're ever in a self-defense situation.

All this is from memory. You might want to check the details yourself.
 
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He was initially indicted on attempted murder (!) and other charges but was later acquitted when he successfully argued self-defense. As I recall his biggest problem was his alleged quote just before firing a subsequent shot at one of his assailants ("you don't look so bad, here's another"). Something to bear in mind when shooting to "stop the threat".
Click to expand...
Yes, what you say can land you in trouble. Try being polite before shooting your attacker with "Excuse me, sir, please desist or else I will have no alternative but to shoot you."

He subsequently faced a civil suit by one of the assailants and lost, leaving him financially destitute. Something else to bear in mind if you're ever in a self-defense situation
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Fortunately since then many states like Florida have passed laws against assailants suing in civil court if the shooting was justfiable.
 
Maybe it was a different time period in New York (with 2000 murders a day even the most liberal gun grabbers can sometimes look the other way) but I wonder how much jeopardy you could be in .
Click to expand...

That has to be wrong. That's 730,000 murders/year.

Mike
 
I found some stats - I have no idea how reliable they are.

Maybe it was a different time period in New York (with 2000 murders a day even the most liberal gun grabbers can sometimes look the other way) but I wonder how much jeopardy you could be in .
Click to expand...

murder rate in 2005 was at its lowest level since 1963: there were 539 murders that year, for a murder rate of 6.58 per 100,000 people,
Click to expand...

So the actual rate in NYC in 2005 was less than 2 per day. Still too many, but still a lot less than 2000/day.

Among the 182 U.S. cities with populations of more than 100,000, New York City ranked 136th in overall crime (with about the same crime rate as Boise, Idaho)
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What are Boise's CCW laws like?

Mike
 
The only problem I had with the film was the ultimate message.
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That's interesting - I couldn't have specified a message. The violence the Jodie Foster character experiences - and deals out - changes her. I don't know if the movie took a stand on whether that change was right or wrong. I suspect that if I had to sum it up, I would quote Nietzsche.

And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.
Click to expand...

Or maybe better,

He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster.
Click to expand...

Mike
 
Maybe it was a different time period in New York (with 2000 murders a day even the most liberal gun grabbers can sometimes look the other way) but I wonder how much jeopardy you could be in .
Click to expand...
That has to be wrong. That's 730,000 murders/year.
Click to expand...
It is wrong; but in 1990 there were over 2000 total murders and over 200,000 incidents of violent crime. Today NY is home to millions more people, and the number of murders and violent crimes is less than half of that during the Bernard Goetz case.

I'm no fan of Giuliani - for several reasons including his reputed gun control stance - but he did promise to clean up the city, and succeeded. IMHO his success was due in large part to enforcing criminal law that already existed. What a concept.
 
Sorry About Murder Rate

I meant to say "2000 a yr" - and it looks like that was overstated. But 700-900 per year is pretty noticeable, even in NYC :D
 
....didn't Bernie Goetz get what amounted to was a slap on the wrist for capping some scumbags on a New York subway when they tried to rob him?
Click to expand...
- The Shootist

This is what happened to the real life Bernie Goetz.....

Much of the national attention surrounded his 1987 criminal trial. Goetz, who did not testify during the trial, was acquitted of attempted murder charges. He was convicted on a weapons charge and served 8-1/2 months in jail.

Cabey v. Goetz (4/96)
Was Bernhard Goetz a racist or a helpless victim when he shot four teenagers on a New York City subway in December 1984?

That was the central issue in the civil lawsuit filed against Goetz by Darrell Cabey, one of the victims in the attack.

Over the years, the Goetz case was seized by advocates on opposing sides of urban issues like crime, race, gun control, and vigilante justice. Much of the national attention surrounded his 1987 criminal trial. Goetz, who did not testify during the trial, was acquitted of attempted murder charges. He was convicted on a weapons charge and served 8-1/2 months in jail.

The December 22, 1984, shooting left Cabey paralyzed and brain damaged. He sued for $25 million in compensatory damages and a similar amount in punitive damages.

Cabey's case was simple: Goetz was a racist who overreacted when he needlessly shot the four black youths. After wounding Cabey, Goetz walked up to the bleeding youth and delivered the paralyzing gunshot, announcing, "You don't look too bad, here's another."

Goetz's defense was just as simple: He fired in self-defense when approached by four muggers who tried to shake him down for $5.

During the trial, Cabey's lawyer Ron Kuby bolstered his case by using Goetz's own words against him.

Goetz did not show much remorse when he testified for the first time about the shooting.

He acknowledged he had thought about using his keys to gouge out the eyes of one of the wounded youths. And he was asked about his remark that Cabey's mother should have had an abortion, and that the shooting "could be looked on" as a public service.

"I was trying to get as many of them as I could," he also said.

After Goetz was called to the witness stand by Cabey's lawyers, he was expected to testify again when the defense presented its case. But he didn't. The defense presented only two witnesses.

Newspaper columnist Jimmy Breslin testified about an interview he had with Cabey almost a year after the shooting. Breslin said Cabey told him that three other young men on the train intended to rob Goetz because ''he looked like easy bait.''

The other witness was Dr. Bernard Yudowitz, a forensic psychiatrist, who testified about how intensely people can react if they believe their lives are in danger.


Verdict
On April 24, 1996, the jury found that Goetz acted recklessly and deliberately inflicted emotional distress on Cabey. The jury awarded Cabey $43 million in damages -- $18 million for past and future pain and suffering, and $25 million in punitive damages. But Cabey is not likely to see anywhere near that amount since Goetz has little money. In such cases it is common for the court to garnish 10 percent of the defendant's wages for 20 years.
 
Much hay has been made regarding Foster's comments in various publications and TV shows regarding gun ownership and the second amendment.

What I'd like to know is what views (if any) regarding the topic are held by the writer and director of the movie.
 
But 700-900 per year is pretty noticeable, even in NYC.
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It was 579 last year. I was really just curious what the rates actually were. Jody Foster's character keeps intoning "the safest largest city in America", with irony in the movie.

I just wondered what the actual stats were - and now that I looked them up, I am surprised.

If you had to guess, which city on this list had half the murder rate (per 100,000) of any of the other cities? NYC, Dallas, Phoenix, Columbus, Memphis, Kansas City, Tulsa? (At least in 2003).

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0004902.html

Mike
 
What I'd like to know is what views (if any) regarding the topic are held by the writer and director of the movie.
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The movie appeared to me to be a pretty complex portrait of effect of violence on one character. I don't think that I will spoil the movie for anyone if I tell you that Jody Foster plays a character who is the victim of a violent crime, and she exacts vengeance against people who were and were not involved in that crime.

The movies focuses on more on her psychological state than anything else - it's a little hard to tell if she's deteriorating or growing. I don't think she (the main character even knows). I don't think that she's very happy with who she's becoming.

Some of her actions are motivated by self defense - at least one brutal murder is clearly not self-defense.

I don't think that the movie had an RKBA focus. I could not discern from the movie any moral judgement about the actions of her character.

Anyone else - who's actually seen the movie - have a different take?

Mike
 
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