Jodie FOSTER is perfectly aware that in reality women don't kill strangers. "They kill their husbands and their children and themselves," said the 44-year-old actress matter-of-factly. "That's how women handle rage and abuse. Men are able to push outwards and are able to say, 'I'm hurt so there must be something wrong with you.'
"Let's say there is one that is," she continued. A woman who does expel her anger outwards, that is. And let's say she's played by the two-time Oscar winner. "What is she like?" asked Foster. "What if she's someone who says, 'I'm not going to kill my children. I'm not going to kill myself. I'm going to kill that . . .'?"
In the film "The Brave One," opening in mid-September from Warner Bros., audiences will see Foster's rendition of this kind of a woman, an NPR-type radio host who is thrashed by malicious gangbangers in the first 10 minutes of the movie, then left in a bloody heap to watch them pummel her fiancé to a pulp. Afterward, her character transforms into a cerebral vigilante, methodically mowing down an array of wife-beaters, muggers, hoodlums and psychopaths. It's a replay of 1974's "Death Wish," with Foster as a pint-sized Charles Bronson in a hoodie and leather jacket. Or a reworking of "Taxi Driver" where the girl who so memorably played the child prostitute in short shorts and a floppy hat has grown up and turned into Travis Bickle, her own addled savior.
Like the original "Death Wish," which sparked controversy for theoretically sanctifying antisocial behavior, "The Brave One" (written by Roderick Taylor, Bruce Taylor and Cynthia Mort) seems destined to divide audiences, between those who are titillated by Foster's descent into a cold-fingered executioner, riveted by her startlingly physical performance -- Foster practically invades the film with her tiny, sinewy form and low, modulated tones -- and others who will find it an exploitation movie tricked out like an art film, a morally repugnant exercise in which vengeance is celebrated. And don't be surprised if the controversy breaks down along gender lines between women who groove to Foster's brainy and bloodthirsty rebellion and men who find it all man-hating.
