The Brave

At the first glance one could believe that "The Brave" is an action movie: a desperate man enters in the wrong place and he has to run away in order to keep himself alive. For those who love the adventures and action movies this one could be the prefect beginning for another one. Instead, the film moves into the philosophical reflection of meaning of life and death. The story is about love and struggling against fatality.

Depp gives us a beautiful movie that shows an excellent director: the photography is wonderful, the first sequence is hallucinant; the only regret is that it remembers Jarmush's "Dead Man".

When this came on Tasmanian television, (oh yes) I did have some misgivings about staying up late to watch it. Then the "directed by Johnny Depp" came on and I thought....boy if Brando wasn't in this I am off to bed. But I sat up, watched it, and it one of those films that stays with you. The horror and the torture come later, and it is awful to think of this brave young man subjecting himself to these monsters, but that is the lure of the story I guess. Perfect casting by Depp, cant argue with the direction or the story. It's bleak but somehow beautiful at the same time. Yes it shows the best and worst of humanity. Not something to watch with the family on a movie night, but it does deserve an audience...you will not enjoy it but you will remember it.

Continuing my plan to watch every Johnny Depp movie in order, I come to his first, and to date, only directorial effort The Brave (1997)

An unemployed alcoholic Native American Indian (Depp) lives on a trailer park with his wife and two children. Convinced that he has nothing to offer this world, he agrees to be tortured to death in a snuff movie in return for $50,000. He is given one week before he must make the movie.

Some of Depp's work is too sad or strange to watch often, but every movie in his unique filmography (at least at this point) deserves to be seen at least once. I don't think this is an easy watch, the first line of dialogue is not spoken until ten minutes into the film.

It's a slow mover, and truthfully it could have lost about 30 minutes and lost none of the impact. Depp is really good here. No surprise as he was always great. Thankfully Brando's screen time is limited and Luis Guzmàn pops up too.

I can see why some people will not like it, and complain nothing happens. You will probably not enjoy it. But it will certainly stay with you!!

Depp was so upset at negative reviews by American critics attending an otherwise successful screening at the Cannes Film Festival. He refused to release the film in the United States.

I had read an article in a waiting room Entertainment Weekly while getting a punctured tire repaired, an article about unreleased (or little-released) films and albums by big-name directors and artists. An internet search indicates this was "Buried Treasure" by Tim Carvell in issue # 795, December 3, 2004. One of them was this film, unreleased in the US, but available on DVD in the UK. Happily I own a region-free player that does PAL-NTSC conversion (I wish they would abolish regional encoding!), and the DVD on the UK Amazon site was relatively cheap, so I ordered it.

I'm surprised to see that the author of the novel this film was adapted from was the author of the Fletch series! This is entirely different.

Johnny Depp plays a native American living with his wife, son, and daughter in a small trailer in a shantytown next to a garbage dump in the desert. Days seem to be spent mostly sleeping. He goes to town to apply for a job a man in a bar told him about. He goes to a pretty shady place, and we learn what the job is (reading the DVD box would tell you the same thing): to be tortured and killed (presumably on film) for $50,000. He's given some money up front (at least a couple thousand, not sure how much), and a week before he has to come back to do the job. Evidently in the book he's only offered $30,000 and given $200 up front!

He goes back home, and doesn't do much initially, but then tries bonding more with his family, who he'd grown apart from while drinking. He spends the money on things that delight his kids, but seem pretty frivolous. His wife is worried he's robbed a store or done something else that will get him put in jail again. He hopes the money will help his family move up in life, and it comes at an opportune time, since the shantytown is due to be demolished.

It's a bit longer than I think it need be, about two hours. However, it is well directed. I think Johnny Depp did a good job with it.

Marlon Brando's role is pretty small. He'd worked with Depp before in Don Juan DeMarco (1995), quite a different movie than this one! Iggy Pop, who worked on the soundtrack has a short cameo as a man at a fiesta eating a giant drumstick.

I expected this movie to be a real "stinker" based on comments I had seen. But I was pleasantly surprised to see how good a movie it is. It is a powerful story about desperate people and should have received more attention and respect than it did. The movie could use some work in places, but it deserves to be released.