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The Brave (1997) More at IMDbPro »

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60 comments in total

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55 out of 64 people found the following comment useful :-
Everyone should watch it if they have the chance, but don't expect to go away smiling., 26 January 2004

Author: Calico_Padmez from England

Wow. I just watched The Brave. Before I saw it, I knew that it was the only film which Johnny Depp has directed. After seeing it, I can add 'unfortunately' to the beginning of the fact. In every film that he's been in, nevermind the quality of the film itself, Johnny Depp has always given a wonderful performance. As a director, he's no different. The Brave is truly outstanding. How to describe the film? It's impossibly really. All I can say is...wow. Every actor is great. It's hard to get good child actors, but here it had been done. Johnny Depp is fantastic as usual, the wife is brilliant too. I don't think that there is a single performance that I would criticise. With the film, I did something that I've never done before - I didn't move for the last 10 or 20 minutes, and when it was over, I just sat through the credits completely in shock, crying. I even stayed in front of the DVD menu for a while afterwards, completely still. How anyone can call this film 'boring' is beyond me. Heartbreaking, uncomfortable, yes, but it is far from boring. Everyone should watch The Brave if they have the chance, but don't expect to go away smiling.

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33 out of 39 people found the following comment useful :-
A movie worth watching!, 27 October 2003

Author: makent01 from USA

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.

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26 out of 31 people found the following comment useful :-
it lingers, 29 October 2003

Author: who cares (bijindesu2@yahoo.com) from usa

I just saw this movie on DVD. As soon as I finished watching, I felt I had to see it again.

The thought of being killed for money may sound bizarre, but in this movie, it's very realistic.

The movie caught the mindset of a man about to be sacrified very well and you could feel the intensity. It neither condemned nor aprove his decision. But his actions all made sense, so we sympathize but not pity him.

Johnny Depp played the role so well, he was able to convince us that he was just doing his best to help his beloved family.

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27 out of 34 people found the following comment useful :-
Beautiful movie. Depp is an excellent director andactor., 29 April 1999

Author: Fernando Padron (ferpadron@hotmail.com) from Mexico City, Mexico

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".

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21 out of 25 people found the following comment useful :-
slow, sad film about poverty and braveness; respectable first-time directing work by Depp, 17 February 2005

Author: CryFi from Lansingburgh, New York, USA

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.

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18 out of 23 people found the following comment useful :-
A must see, 2 November 2005

Author: kimclark12 from United States

Once again Johnny Depp proves to us what a great talent he is, not only with his acting, but directing as well. His long time career and affiliation with such talented directors shows.

This movie had me mesmerized. It's beginning so quiet and the outcome leaving me in tears. The photography was beautiful leaving me feel that although the people were extremely poor, they had what they needed because they had each other. The sacrifice that Rafael makes is beyond love, beyond money.

It struck me while watching the scene between Marlon Brando and Johnny Depp that Johnny is the young Brando. The scene so intense the two actors on the same level. Wow.

Johnny Depp has once again outdone himself and I will look forward to whatever else he has to offer us whether it be acting or directing. This is a must see for any Depp fan and more to the point, any movie fan.

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12 out of 16 people found the following comment useful :-
What a treat!, 7 October 2002

Author: E.C. Montana (epevae) from Berlin, Germany

The plot itself is so bizarre that it might well be real. Rafael´s love for his family is greater than his fear of dying.There is hardly a more difficult decision to make.Despite his clearly showing conflict,he seems to have decided to do it from the start. Despite the doubts he is facing from his wife due to his previous imprisonment, he follows it through and takes care of everything before he follows the trail to his doom. A true brave in a true drama with a very sensitive ending.

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7 out of 10 people found the following comment useful :-
Powerful and unforgettable, excellent, 8 January 2007

Author: ziouxpioux from United States

Depp was superb as the director and the star. Some find the movie to be to slow and/or to long. Not so unless, a person is into car chases, kick boxing and explicit sex. Please be aware this movie had the most sensual scene between a man and his wife I have ever seen and I doubt anyone will ever top it.

Anyone who does not understand or appreciate what Depp was attempting to depict is shallow and/or dense. Excellent movie! I feel "The Brave" deserves the respect of the American movie public. It is really pathetic the movie was panned so badly that Depp refused to release it in the United States.

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15 out of 26 people found the following comment useful :-
pure beauty, 5 August 2002

Author: roger from madrid. spain

The movie touched me, it is pure beauty, and johnny depp proves once more he has a lot to say. Vilko Filac's photography is terrific, Iggy Pop's music is great. and the actors are great. We expect anotherone Johnny!!!!

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4 out of 5 people found the following comment useful :-
White male creepy, 17 March 2008

Author: (swillsqueal@yahoo.com.au) from Perth, Australia

This is an altogether creepy replication of the inner states of mind that perpetuate themselves in class society. The notion that one should submit to all sorts of violent and humiliating forms of inner degradation which rob you of your life in order to support your family is experienced, in conventional society, as "the reality principle". The vulgar, self-indulgent and pointless, political, power-trip sadism of the bosses -- who are significantly, in this movie, decadent and repulsive, old, rich white men -- is reproduced with force. But then, it's a familiar scene to anyone familiar with certain religious doctrines: the father gives the son the power to do a miracle or two during his last days; but demands the ultimate sacrifice to pay for the "sins" of humanity, this time, not on a cross; but a medieval appearing torture chair, looking very much like a tool from some forgotten Inquisition. Indeed, the seller must pay the price of the sale, even it that seller is a miserable wage-slave trying to create a little temporary happiness in a garbage strewn world, gone to the dogs.

The problem with this movie is that it makes you feel more than a bit ill inside and out. You know, at some level, that a parent's sacrificial lamb-like suicide for their child will not help to give their kids a life but will emotionally destroy the next generation and on ad infinitum, by leaving most of humanity with internal psychological scar and legacy which is masochism.

Depp plays a Native American in the movie, a brave so to speak. And, he does have courage. He faces death at the hands of his employer. But, in this reviewer's opinion, this brave should have seen a better ending--with the death of the employer, not the implied death of the wage-slave; for in taking that path, a brave only ensures that the poor will always be with us.

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