Jodie Foster as a vigilante public-radio personality; director Neil Jordan flirts with turning her character into a latter-day Travis Bickle, but doesn't take the flirtation quite far enough.

Jodie Foster plays an eccentric public radio personality — she's pictured wandering the New York City streets, recording her own footsteps — who's traumatized by a brutal mugging in which her fiancé is murdered.

She buys a gun, witnesses other attacks, and is soon wandering the city again, this time blasting thugs to kingdom come. Meanwhile homicide detective Terrence Howard is trying to solve not just her fiance's murder but also the vigilante killings.

Mostly preposterous complications ensue, accompanied by some decent acting — plus a certain frisson as director Neil Jordan flirts with turning Foster's character into a latter-day Travis Bickle.

He doesn't flirt enough, though, to overcome plot implausibilities, even with Howard and Foster establishing an edgy rapport.

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