REEL CRITICS:

Jodie Foster gives her substantial all for “The Brave One,” a well-acted but unoriginal thriller repetitive of previous roles — “Taxi Driver,” “The Accused,” and “Flightplan” come to mind. Jodie’s Greatest Hits, Volume I.

She plays cool, self-contained radio personality Erica Bain who walks the streets of New York, recording its sounds and her own pithy thoughts. She and her sexy boyfriend are viciously attacked, turning Erica into a shell of her former self.

So she buys a gun for protection and discovers an aptitude for taking out bad guys.

But we’re not allowed to find her actions completely repugnant because hey, she’s a Serious Actress.

Even a police detective investigating the murders (Terrence Howard) finds her dead sexy.

Erica becomes more confident and cold-blooded in her new-found power of death over life. But she begins to make some dumb mistakes — has the woman never seen “CSI?” Perhaps she has a death wish.

Foster and Howard, attractive and talented, have a nice chemistry. It would have been more interesting if the final act had gone with the logical outcome, instead of copping out to please the crowd.

Speaking of crowds, the scariest thing in this film was the highly vocal audience approval whenever someone got popped.

And just exactly who is “The Brave One” supposed to be in this scenario anyway — the one holding the gun, or the fool looking down the barrel?

 Billy Bob can’t let go of being grouchy man

Here’s another prime example of stupidity replacing comedy in major Hollywood productions.

Once again Billy Bob Thornton trots out his tired routine of the mean old man who torments kids and insults decent folks at every turn. His “Bad Santa” and “Bad News Bears” persona is now the Bad “Mr. Woodcock” of the title.

He plays an evil gym teacher whose mission in life seems to be the humiliation of his students.

Sean William Scott plays one of his grown-up student victims. He vividly remembers his dreadful experience as an overweight boy in the gym from hell.

He returns home as a young man to find his widowed mother is about to marry the nefarious Mr. Woodcock. This basic premise does have humorous possibilities.

But Susan Sarandon falls far below her abilities in playing the clueless mother.

Billy Bob is just going through the motions as wooden as his character’s name.

The lousy acting, lame dialogue and painfully unfunny jokes torpedo any chance of success for this turkey. It’s one of the worst films of the year.

SUSANNE PEREZ lives in Costa Mesa and is an executive assistant for a financial services company. JOHN DEPKO is a Costa Mesa resident and a senior investigator for the Orange County public defender’s office.