The Brave One

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"I'm Erica Bain. And as *you* know, I walk the city."

Erica Bain (Jodie Foster) is a confident, content, reasonably left-wing radio host, madly in love with the city of New York and her fiancee David (Naveen Andrews). Sadly, he is killed and she is beaten within an inch of her life by a gang of thugs in Central Park one night. Emotionally shattered and incapable of feeling safe in the city she once adored, Erica buys a gun and attempts to move on. Fate has other plans, however, as she begins to encounter situation after situation that leave her with no choice but to blow somebody away. As the reputation of the mysterious vigilante begins to rise, Erica is torn between genuine disgust at her reluctant actions and the savage pleasure of dealing out first-hand justice to the blatantly deserving.

A touching and painful variation of the well-known Vigilante Man subgenre (Taxi Driver, Death Wish), due only in part to the vigilante not being a man at all.

Tropes used in The Brave One include:

• A Darker Me - Erica's even acutely aware of the concept.
• Anti-Hero
  • You could even say "Anti Victim".
• Big Applesauce
• Black and Grey Morality
• Casting Gag - Jodie Foster, given her role in Taxi Driver.
  • And arguably Naveen Andrews as well, since he played the consummate Badass on "Lost"--even coming Back from the Dead at one point, although not in a good way, and in this he dies very early on.
• The City Narrows
• City Noir
• Dead Air - When New York DJ Erica Bane resumes her first radio broadcast after her vicious attack (and subsequent vigilante slaying), she falls silent in the middle of reading her opening monologue. Her savvy producer decides to let the scene play out, and a few seconds later Erica starts over with a raw and emotional impromptu dialogue about how terrifying the once familiar city can become after being victimized for the first time.
• Despair Event Horizon
• Gender-Inverted Trope - It's a very typical "good man gone vigilante" story, only from a female perspective, focusing more on emotion.
• I Did What I Had to Do - Reluctantly.
• Jodie Foster Is About To Shoot You - The DVD Cover(the especially spoiler-sensitive should avoid the blurb on the back there), although in yet another subversion of the genre, her stare is far more focal than the barrel of the gun.
• Madden Into Misanthropy
• Might Makes Right - Erica REALLY tries not to subscribe to this.... and is repeatedly left with few other options.
• New York Subway - You bet.
• Pre-Mortem One-Liner - "I want my dog back!" *Boom! Headshot!*
• Rape and Revenge
• Sociopathic Hero - Subverting this is the point of the film.
• Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right
• Shout-Out: The subway scene is almost identical to one from Death Wish.
• Show Within A Film - Erica hosts a radio call-in one.
  • It only became a call in show after her killings gained notoriety.
• Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism
• Smoking Gun Control - To Erica's disbelief when it comes to both her enemies, and later herself.