I want my dog back.

As a rule, I try not to read a film's reviews before I see it. I do this for two reasons: 1. When I do read a review, I find that I go in with an expectation of how well I'll like the movie, and as self-fulfilling prophecies usually go, I end up feeling the way I thought I would. And 2. I like to see if what I have to say about a film is the same as what the critics are saying. I like to test my movie-critic intuition, if you will. I do, sometimes, look at star ratings of movies before I go see them...so without reading in-depth about a film, I do know how well it's being received overall. I noticed that Entertainment Weekly (one of my favorite magazines, by the way) gave The Brave One a C+. (Entertainment Weekly eschews star ratings in favor of letter grades). After having seen the film this past Saturday, I have to say, I don't think The Brave One deserves a C+. I think it deserves an A- or a B+, at the very least. Why are movie critics so snobby these days? I love revenge movies. I also love movies in which a woman figures out she's part innocent sparrow and part bad-ass. I love movies where characters take the law into their own hands. At the screening I attended, people clapped and cheered, hooted and hollered. I think any movie that inspires that sort of visceral reaction deserves some accolades. Jodie Foster plays Erica Bain, a poetic public-radio employee who is very much in love with her doctor fiancee, played by Naveen Andrews. When she and David are attacked while on a nighttime stroll in the park, he is killed and her whole world collapses. She spirals downward, barely able to leave her apartment, until one day she decides to take matters into her own hands and buys an illegal firearm. It's certainly fun to watch Erica take out the bad guys one by one, and they undoubtedly deserve it, but it's also a little unsettling to watch such a seemingly meek woman turn into a veritable monster, driven equally by fear and rage. I can describe the film in one word: intense. Of course, there are a few flaws--the fact that Erica's original park assailants recorded their own crime on a cell phone. Why on Earth would they have done that? Are we to believe these men are so sick that they were recording their atrocities so that they could watch and delight in them again later? I don't buy it. Still, the fragile relationship that Erica forms with Sean Mercer, a divorced NYPD detective played by Terrence Howard is delightful to watch. Both misfits in their own way, their bond is immediate and solid. I only wish they shared more scenes with one another. And, always fun to watch is Nicky Katt, who provides some much-needed moments of comic relief. So, C+? Nah. This movie is no Oscar-winner, but thank God for that. If every movie that came out was going for an Oscar, we'd be sitting through a lot of films that leave you not with a rush of adrenaline (as The Brave One left me) but with a hearty dose of reality. Sometimes reality is overrated, ya know?