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Braven
By Brian Costello,
Common Sense Media Reviewer
Common Sense Media Reviewers
Extremely violent action movie has language, drugs.
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Braven
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What's the Story?
Joe BRAVEN (Jason Momoa) owns a logging company and lives with his wife, daughter, and father. His father (Stephen Lang), fiercely independent and headstrong, is in the early stages of Alzheimer's. When he sneaks off to a nearby bar and believes a younger woman is his late wife and demands that she go home with him, he starts a protracted bar fight once again that Joe must put a stop to. At the behest of his wife, Joe decides that he needs to talk to his father about getting more care so that incidents like this stop happening. Joe decides to take his father to his secluded log cabin in the woods. When he gets there, he discovers that someone has broken into the cabin and left a rucksack filled with large bags of cocaine. He discovers that the bags were left there by one of his employees, Weston (Brendan Fletcher), who has been running drugs on the side for Kassen (Garret Dillahunt), a vicious drug smuggler. The cabin is surrounded by Weston, Kassen, and a crew of armed drug runners who will stop at nothing to get the drugs back and kill Joe and his father. Joe and his father must fight back, using their skills with weapons and survival experience to outwit Kassen and his crew.
Is It Any Good?
This is pure action movie entertainment, the kind where it's best to just shut off the brain and enjoy the ride. Braven is a ride with enough testosterone to fuel the next seven million Wrestlemanias. There's something about Jason Momoa hanging off the edge of a snow-covered cliff with only a bear trap clamped deep into his leg preventing him from falling that answers the never-asked question "What if Jack London and Jackie Chan made a movie together?" It's beyond absurd, but it's also an undeniably awesome moment, the kind of moment that reminds us why people gravitate to action movies in the first place.
It has everything an audience would want out of a survival-of-the-fittest action movie. The good guys and women are strong, resourceful, and stoic in the face of pain. The bad guys are too psychotic to be concerned about the ramifications of slaughtering an entire family who seem to be beloved in their community. Game on. For older teens and adults who gravitate to this type of survival violence as entertainment, Braven delivers.
Talk to Your Kids About ...
Families can talk about violence in action movies. Is Braven more or less violent than other action movies you've seen? Is the violence necessary to the story?
Violence is shown to be the only solution to any problems presented in this movie. Was there any possible way these conflicts could have been resolved in another way? Why do you think violence is often shown as the only possible solution to conflict in movies?
What are some other examples of movies in which the "strong, silent type" must defend his family, land, or honor from his enemies?
Movie Details
- On DVD or streaming: February 2, 2018
- Cast: Jason Momoa , Garrett Dillahunt , Jill Wagner
- Director: Lin Oeding
- Inclusion Information: Indigenous actors, Polynesian/Pacific Islander actors, Female actors
- Studio: Ingenious Media
- Genre: Action/Adventure
- Run time: 94 minutes
- MPAA rating: R
- MPAA explanation: Violence and for language throughout including some sexual references.
- Last updated: June 1, 2023
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