Lauded mainly for its style and brilliant performance from Jodie Foster, "The Brave One" is an incredible film, for the most part, because of its unconventional portrayal of vendetta. In this movie, the confused protagonist does not go out on an extravagant shooting spree. In fact, most of the battle takes place in her own mind. This results in a very judicial and, perhaps, thoughtful depiction of vengeance and its other vices.

Jodie Foster's character, Erica Bain, is a radio jockey who takes a stroll in Central Park with her fiancé David (Naveen Andrews) when a group of thugs approaches them under an abandoned tunnel, robs the couple and beats them severely. David does not survive, but Erica awakens, her body broken, on a hospital bed. The rest of the story traces the terrifying change taking place within her grief-stricken mind. The loss of David drives her to become so disconnected with herself that she is unaware of the hate that has begun to consume her existence.

Erica is otherwise an average woman who goes to extremes beyond her imagination. When she first picks up a gun and tries to shoot it, she is clumsy. When she first shoots a man, she runs away, huddled and frightened out of her wits. With her small pistol and her hatred for the murderous and the wicked, the woman with a grudge becomes a vigilante. She plays executioner by her own rules, killing a murderer, a rapist, an extortionist-men who are strangers yet, to her, deserving of death. Erica is more than an avenger; she becomes a force of justice, an outlaw who protects the innocent-and a female one, at that.

Foster plays a heroine who, though she may be a femme fatale, is not glorified in any way. "The Brave One" is reminiscent of revenge classics like Michael Winner's "Death Wish" andTakeshi Kitano's "Fireworks," but only to some extent. The male protagonists of these films also experience angst so deep that their instincts to kill become almost understandable to the audience. Erica, however, is a unique persona in that she becomes a superhero who is actually nothing like one.

Erica has no strengths, no virtues that empower her in any way. She is frightened at what she does; weeping and vomiting after a kill, she is neither smooth nor calculating, making the title almost ironic. Director Neil Jordan ("The Crying Game," "Mona Lisa," "The Good Thief") is known for portraying weakness in alarming ways. For Erica, weakness prevents her from controlling the killer within her.

Mercer (Terrence Howard), the detective who investigates the vigilante murders, grows closer and closer to Erica until he begins, reluctantly, to suspect her. Their subtle dialogues reveal the different weaknesses of both characters.

But of course that doesn't mean that the visual beauty of the film bears no importance. Foster's scrawny, T-shirt-clad figure is unforgettable as she moves broodingly about New York City. Erica leads us on a journey through the city, revealing more and more of its cruelty. In fact, the movie begins with a sappy image of New York with the naïve Erica taking a walk down the street and basking in the sounds of life around her. The rest of the movie is characterized by mostly black-and-blue urban scenery that is dark and distorted. During the film, Erica becomes completely morphed to the point at which she can no longer recognize her home city.

"The Brave One" is shot in a manner that is sophisticated but unromantic in all aspects. There is no flourish of the camera, no dramatic music as she shoots to kill. All we see is a very scared woman who causes bloodshed and can't find a way out of it; this is depicted with stunning sobriety in terms of the camerawork. Many elements about the movie are very unusual. Several scenes of Foster are shown reflected in a mirror or captured in a camera, representing the fact that Erica is living her life with dual personalities and, at times, entire images blur to show the uncertainty of Erica's perception of things. Indeed, she loses touch with her own values, unable to tell what's acceptable and unacceptable in her eyes.

The main weakness of this movie is the perhaps clichéd representation of New York City as the "urban jungle." Furthermore, the repetitive flashbacks of love scenes designed to cement David and Erica's romantic relationship seem rather unnecessary­­. The settings of the murder scenes (Central Park, a liquor store, inside a subway) also appear somewhat overused in many other films involving deaths in an urban environment, though writer-director Jordan manages to turn these settings into something unique by making a character like Erica the center of it all. And, of course, Foster makes the complexity of this film possible with her stoically brilliant acting skills.

Overall, "The Brave One" is an unprecedented work, the tale of a woman who takes the law into her own hands but who feels afraid and guilty of what she is doing. Revenge is exposed in a most unappetizing light and, instead, the avenger must struggle to overcome what she has created herself to be. This film is an admirable work, mostly due to what it has to say to the audience. It gives a message that does not dare glamorize death and rage; rather, it depicts the painful consequences in a way that is impossible to ignore or deny.