he Brave One, which screened at the Toronto International Film Festival, is Neil Jordan's wildly uneven but sometimes satisfying vigilante drama set in corners of New York City. More to the point, it’s a revenge Death Wish examination of how a violent act forever could change a normal average joe into someone driven to commit dangerous – if not irrational - acts in order to not just survive but overcome fear.

Written by Roderick Taylor (2001's "American Outlaws"), Bruce A. Taylor and Cynthia Mort, The Brave One tells the trajectory of a New York City radio host, Erica Bain (Jodie Foster). She's in love and about to marry David Kimani, played by Naveen Andrews (from the TV series, Lost). But on an evening walk with her fiancé, she is the victim of a brutal mugging. Her boyfriend dies, but Erica lives.

In recovering from this brutal experience, she falls out of love with her beloved NYC. She becomes overwhelmed by fear and can barely find the nerve to step out of her apartment. Sensing that she’s dooming herself to a lifetime of living in fear if she doesn’t stop playing the victim, she buys a 9mm gun on the black market and descends into vigilante justice, stalking the nighttime streets of Manhattan like a stealth superhero dispensing her own brand of justice.

She begins in a convenience store, where she kills a man in self-defense and takes the surveillance camera evidence, and then on another night she shoots two young men who threaten to rape her.