The Foreigner

On the outside, “The Foreigner,” which came out 4 days ago, promises to be Jackie Chan’s return to the huge action thrillers, and for what we get, the film succeeds in doing that. Alex Welch said in his review, “What most audience members might not be expecting, though, is for the film to also be a strange combination between a Taken-esque revenge story and a convoluted political thriller involving the British government and a new faction of angry, young IRA terrorists.” Those two storylines should not be able to be in the same film, which makes it a tribute to how much “The Foreigner” gets right, that the two very different plots manage to mix together as good as they can.

It’s not bad that director Martin Campbell has casted two skilled acting veterans as the stars of the film, with Pierce Brosnan and Jackie Chan. Both actors are assigned with populating roles that are opposing to the on screen characters they’re most well-known for. Welch said, “Brosnan, for his part, trades in his suave, Bond-like heroic swagger to play a corrupt politician who often closely resembles a mob boss, while Chan turns in a grim and quiet performance, directly contrary to the comedic roles most American audiences associate him with.”

Adapted from Stephen Leather’s 1992 novel The Chinaman, the film is set in modern-day London and Belfast, where a new team of terrorists called “Authentic IRA” claim the people who did a London bombing that murdered over a dozen citizens and many more are injured. Among the victims is the daughter (Katie Leung) of Quan Ngoc Minh (Chan), a Chinese restaurant owner with a history serving in the Vietnam War Special Forces. Left without any other family members to mourn with, Quan decides that he will track down the terrorists and avenge his daughter’s death.

Quan’s quest eventually brings him coming across Brosnan’s Liam Hennessy, a politician with, as Welch said, “Violent roots in the pre-Good Friday Agreement IRA, but who dedicated the latter half of his life to bettering the relations between Ireland and England, while also keeping his pockets full and political appeal high.” With his possible connections to the new IRA team of bombers are in hiding, Quan begins to plant some bombs in order to scare and threaten Hennessy until he, as Quan thinks will happen, disclose the names of the Authentic IRA members who did the bombing.

Quan’s quest is about as simple as it says, and when Chan sometimes cuts through all of Hennessy’s guards and defenses, “The Foreigner” stays with its dark tone and basis. Welch said, “But The Foreigner is also much more of a two-hander than any of the trailers or synopses have let on, and the B-plot involving Hennessy working his way through all of his connections to try and secure his political position takes up a shockingly high amount of the film’s runtime.” With enough twists and turns to look more like a political thriller than anything else, you could forgive if you forget that “The Foreigner” has been given as being a simple revenge story while watching it.

Welch said, “Under the control of any other director, The Foreigner could have very easily become a jumbled mess of a film, but Martin Campbell (who directed Brosnan as Bond in GoldenEye before rebooting that franchise with Casino Royale) is able to streamline all of the action and political machinations in a way that makes them as digestible as they possibly could.” That doesn’t mean the film doesn’t get hurt from its determined story, and “The Foreigner” often hesitates over having to adapt a book’s 1990s roots for the modern day, as multiple characters are forced to explain the history between the IRA and British government before than explaining the actions further of its main terrorist group.

However, like he did with films like “Casino Royale,” Campbell directs the film’s action scenes in such an instinctive, intense way that they often land with huge impact. Even though he is not playing for slapstick comedy this time around, Chan is as entertaining to watch in “The Foreigner” as he has ever been, and the ways where he takes down Hennessy’s guards makes Chan be a really powerful onscreen participant. Welch mentioned, “That includes one action sequence set in a modest Irish bed and breakfast, which many will justifiably tout as being the film’s greatest achievement.”

Welch goes on to say, “The Foreigner uses the talents of both Jackie Chan and Pierce Brosnan quite well, turning the well-worn personas of both actors on their heads.” Thanks to so many forces to cause movement and violent action scenes, “The Foreigner” mostly succeeds at what it was trying to do, even if that also means you’ll likely have already forgotten about it by the time you get home from watching it.

My brother and I saw this today and we both liked it, but we didn’t like how it was all pro-Britain and the torture scene at the end. People like to think the torture scenes we see in movies work in real life, but it doesn’t. However, Jackie Chan does a great job, like always, and if you’re a fan of Jackie Chan and Pierce Brosnan, then definitely see this film. Bear in mind, it’s slow and dialogue-heavy. Not that much action, but I think that’s what Campbell was going for.

Alright everyone, hold on to your vomit bags. Tomorrow I will be looking at one of the worst installments in “Friday the 13^th-a-thon” in this year’s “Halloween Month.”