- ?Why don?t they stop me?? Erica Bain wonders. Bain, a popular N.Y radio host, watched her fianc? die and nearly lost her own life to a vicious, random attack. Now she discovers a stranger within herself, an armed wanderer in the urban night, out for vengeance and at war with her own soul. Two-time Academy Award winner Jodie Foster, as Erica, joins Oscar nominee Terrence Howard, as a determined cop
FOXES - DVD MovieA young Jodie Foster stars in this compassionate portrait of four unhappy teenage girls struggling with life in late 1970s Los Angeles. Jeannie (Foster) and her friends all have parents who are either divorced, negligent, or downright abusive. Looking for some kind of point to their lives, the girls drink, do drugs, sleep around, and fight with their parents and each other--but
Foxes isn't the trashy melodrama you might expect. The writing and performances are surprisin! gly good, though it's no surprise that Foster (
Taxi Driver,
The Silence of the Lambs) stands out for sheer charisma and depth. Director Adrian Lyne (
Fatal Attraction,
Flashdance) demonstrates a deft hand for juggling the girls' multiple storylines. Also featuring Sally Kellerman (
M*A*S*H), Randy Quaid (
Kingpin,
Independence Day), Scott Baio (television's
Happy Days), and a brief appearance by a very young Laura Dern (
Blue Velvet,
Citizen Ruth).
--Bret FetzerA young woman is gang raped in a bar. She battles the legal system twice as she and her attorney go after both her attackers and the bystanders who cheered them on.
Genre: Feature Film-Drama
Rating: R
Release Date: 28-MAR-2006
Media Type: DVDJodie Foster won her first Oscar for her role in this drama, based on an actual incident. She plays a girl out for a night of fun at a poolroom. Before she kno! ws what's happening, the men she's been flirting with have pin! ned her down for a gang rape. The story centers on the efforts of a district attorney (Kelly McGillis) to press her case, in spite of a wall of silence by the participants--and then to take the unusual step of going after the witnesses as accomplices. Foster is outstanding as a tough, blue-collar woman who persists in what seems like an unwinnable case, despite the prospect of character assassination for standing up for herself.
--Marshall Fine"Why don‘t they stop me?" Erica Bain wonders. Bain, a popular N.Y radio host, watched her fiancé die and nearly lost her own life to a vicious, random attack. Now she discovers a stranger within herself, an armed wanderer in the urban night, out for vengeance and at war with her own soul. Two-time Academy Award winner Jodie Foster, as Erica, joins Oscar nominee Terrence Howard, as a determined cop hot on her trail. Erica?s future is uncertain, but one thing is not: THE BRAVE ONE is a high- tension thriller that packs a visceral and e! motional punch.Neil Jordan's somber
The Brave One is a lot of things. A reflective movie about a crime victim's sense of dislocation and isolation from her own life following a harrowing trauma, the film will strike a chord with a lot of people who have known violence.
The Brave One is also a provocative drama about the nature of justice, a theme explored endlessly in American movies that typically find law enforcement wanting. In Jordan's film, however, the conflict between instinctive vigilantism and legal protocols is approached with more deliberateness and complexity than usual. Finally, despite its seriousness of purpose,
The Brave One, to a certain extent, is drearily tethered to the old atrocity-and-revenge genre, bumping along to the familiar,
Death Wish-like rhythms of an avenger seeking successive conflicts with bad guys he or she can blow away.
Somewhat at cross-purposes, The Brave One stars Jodie Foster in a shattering perf! ormance as Erica Bain, a popular essayist on a public radio st! ation in New York. In love and engaged to David (Naveen Andrews), a doctor, Erica and her fiancé are brutally attacked one night by a gang of thugs. David is killed but Erica survives, only to find herself a stranger in her own skin, facing down her fears by shooting violent criminals.
With the city riveted by her anonymous actions, Erica becomes an object of curiosity for a police detective (an excellent Terrence Howard) disillusioned by his own struggles to protect the innocent from truly evil men. Jordan's previous films (The Crying Game, Breakfast on Pluto) resonate with The Brave One's most interesting angle, i.e., that each of us possesses a hidden element in our identities that comes out in extreme circumstances, making us wonder who we really are. It's all excellent food for thought, but the film squanders much of its significance by thrusting Erica into numerous, outlandish situations in which her only alternative is to put a bullet in a bad guy. T! he result is a smart film tediously structured like a disposable B movie. --Tom Keogh
is a Western spoof about two women, Maria Alvarez (Penelope Cruz) and Sara Sandoval (Salma Hayek), who seek to avenge the tragedies befallen both their fa! thers under robber baron, Tyler Jackson (Dwight Yoakam). Jacks! on, empl oyed by the Bank of New York, is sent to Mexico to buy land and open banks to the detriment of local culture. Jackson kills Sara's corrupt father, Don Diego, while bandits burn down Maria's home. The two ladies band together for the community's cause. Under the tutelage of Bill Buck (Sam Sheperd), Sara and Maria develop bank robbery skills. When criminologist, Quentin Cooke (Steve Zahn), hunts them, they convert him with their strong moral sense and good looks. Like any Thelma and Louise-ish tale of women who take charge, Maria and Sara are foil characters who eventually become an invincible, sisterly team. This comedy is built around their bickering. For Sara, with European education and penchant of designer clothing, Maria is a hick who lacks refinement, yet Maria, horse whisperer, can fire a gun. The slapstick is overkill, for example when Sara wonders whether a bandana is Gucci or Prada. However, viewers will love Penelope Cruz on horseback and the two actresses p! ractice-kissing their foe in a brothel. Bandidas is a light film with some laughs and mucho sex appeal. -- Trinie Dalton
