Foster sticks to guns in 'Brave'.(Film)(Jodie Foster's 'The Brave One')

Women in mainstream Hollywood dramas rarely use guns. Outside of the action fantasy realm, they don't kill, and if they do, it's a crime of passion involving a husband or lover. And they don't kill repeatedly, for revenge.

That's for vigilante Charles Bronson. Or Clint Eastwood. Or Robert De Niro. When "The Brave One" debuts at the Toronto Film Festival, some will view it as a response to the countless women in film who have been assaulted by violent men, from Foster's 13-year-old prostitute in "Taxi Driver" to her rape victim in "The Accused," which won her the actress Oscar. In "The Brave One," Foster fights back.

"You're led, strategically and architecturally, through each killing," Foster tells Variety. "Where the line is that you wouldn't cross becomes extremely blurry."

Safe to say in this pic, New York radiocaster Erica Bain has issues. She and her lover (Naveen Andrews) are brutally beaten by a gang of thugs in Central Park. After he is killed, the traumatized Bain picks up a 9mm handgun. She haunts the New York streets in a dark hoodie. When provoked, she …