The Brave One

How many films have there been about victims of violence who turn into avengers? Charles Bronson made five. Kevin Bacon’s “Death Sentence” was released two weeks ago. How are we supposed to respond to them? When Bronson’s kill count got above 50, why didn’t the scales of justice snap? But now here is Jodie Foster, with a skilled co-star and director, to give us a movie that deals, really deals, with the issues involved.

Foster plays Erica, a talk jock on a New York radio station. She’s engaged to a doctor named David (Naveen Andrews); they’re in Central Park late one night, they’re mugged, he’s killed and she’s badly injured. When Erica is discharged, she’s shaking with terror. Her illusion of a safe city life is destroyed. And one day she buys a gun and practices on a shooting range where you can see fear turning into anger in her eyes.



Not long after, she’s in a late-night convenience store. A holdup takes place, there’s violence, she kills a guy to save her life, and she feels — well, how does she feel? Shaken, nauseous maybe, but certainly glad she’s alive.



We’ve started with one of those admirable National Public Radio types whose voice is almost maddeningly sane and patient, and now we have a woman (narrating the movie, sometimes) who sounds more like she doesn’t work upstairs over the saloon but she does own a piece of it. Erica has never seen herself as capable of killing, and now she grows addicted to it, offering herself as defenseless bait for criminals and then proving how terribly mistaken they were.



These are the general parameters of all vengeance movies. And often there’s a cop on the case who grows curiously close to the killer. With Bronson, it was Vincent Gardenia. With Bacon, Aisha Tyler. With Foster, it’s Terrence Howard, playing a detective named Mercer who is assigned to the original mugging, who chats with Erica, who observes there seem to be a lot of people in the city who would like to get even. “Yes,” she says, “there must be a lot of us.” Us. Curious word choice. Mercer hears it.



Psychological suspense is what makes “The Brave One” spellbinding. The movie doesn’t dine out on action scenes, but regards with great curiosity how these two people will end up. Rated R for strong violence, language and some sexuality. HHH1/2 – Roger Ebert

The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters

A documentary that is beyond strange, about two archenemies and their grim, long-term rivalry to set the world record score in the 1980s arcade game Donkey Kong. One is a hot sauce tycoon, the other just got laid off at Boeing, and they both spend way more time playing Donkey Kong than any human life should have to endure. Rated PG-13 for a brief sexual reference HHH – RE

Dragon Wars

Dragon armies battle on the streets of Los Angeles with a beautiful young woman holding the key in this battle of good vs. evil. Rated PG-13 – Bill White

Moliere

The story of Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, also known as Moliere, the writer who would be known as the father and true master of comic satire, before he became famous. In fact, he was 22, bankrupt and in jail. Rated PG-13 – BW