'Braven' - Movie Review

The premise is simple: drugs are stashed at an innocent man's cabin, innocent man and his family fight the bad guys to not be killed. I was sold on the concept when I found out that the "innocent man" in the equation was Jason Momoa, and he was throwing axes to save his family. I mean, what more could you want?

Momoa plays Joe Braven, a logging company supervisor. The first twenty minutes are spent filling us in the fact that he's a good boss and a good father, husband, and son. Although the latter is a problem, as his father (Stephen Lang) is having significant memory issues after head trauma, and his behaviour sometimes cause problems with the local police.

And here, because I'd seen the trailers and I knew that there was going to be that fight at the cabin, I thought "he's going to die fighting to saving his granddaughter." This allows him a noble death while also freeing Joe from having to put his father in a care home (something neither of them was willing to face). I was close enough on that guess to be thoroughly annoyed: this falls under "if I can guess your plot structure, you're doing it wrong," so major points off for that.

Joe and his wife are both strong and independent and fight very hard for their family. Joe is amazingly inventive in his methods of fighting back, somewhat reminiscent of MacGyver (you can decide if that's good or bad). My final assessment was that it was a decent, if somewhat rote, thriller.

I don't think a location was ever named, but it's implied it's the Pacific Northwest of the U.S. in late fall (after a snow storm). Apparently they filmed much of it in Newfoundland! Both have great scenery.