Isn't it a bit of a stretch to try to tie two recent films with shared themes of vigilantism into some grand thesis about the state of American society? I'm inclined to see The Brave One as simply another installment in a series that includes The Panic Room, and Flight Plan -- Jodie Foster (and the film makers) makes good money depicting women in danger who overcome their antagonists. Perhaps the success of these films has more to do with the audience's interest in seeing an attractive woman at risk, and then victorious, than any larger concern about American society.

Yes, but there's an institutional cynicism at work with the Foster picture:

They're believing that young audiences have no memory of "Death Wish."

If you're old enough to remember "Death Wish," the point in the Jodie Foster trailer when she's on the subway and muggers approach ("This is too easy") is a DIRECT MATCH for the earlier film: "Hey, that's Death Wish."

Some Hollywood producer figured "Hey, Death Wish as a typical Jodie Foster woman-in-jep vehicle." Jodie -- smart girl, they don't bankroll her other projects -- says "yes," gets paid millions.

The end.

I think you need to re-read the beginning of the article. It's not tying just these two movies to "some grand thesis." It's talking about a recent large trend in the movies that has *culminated* in these two.

OK, I re-read the article, as you suggest. I still see it as a strained attempt to tie America in the 00's to America in the 70s, and to advance a thesis that seems to be popular among some writers today: that the Bush presidency is as bad for America today as the Nixon presidency once was ("this cycle proves that ... the two eras parallel each other like twin dark alleys in the American imagination"). Regardless of whether that thesis is valid, I think it is a stretch to point to a few recent movies as evidence. Leaving aside the question of whether or not these films are actually the "brutal climax" of some trend, I question to what degree we can see them as indicative of American culture. I'm afraid to say that I think films like "Mr. Woodcock" are more representative of the sorry state of American culture than is "The Brave One".