I saw a preview for The Foreigner, and I’m a Jackie Chan fan so I wanted to see it in theaters, but mixed reviews and life got in the way. The Foreigner was promoted as being directed by the same director who did Casino Royale, but it would have been more accurate to say that it was the same director who helmed Green Lantern, Martin Campbell’s most recent theatrical directing feature. Chan would make a great Liam Neeson, but unfortunately his character is fairly extraneous to the plot and only amplifies tension, but is not the cause of it.
The Foreigner’s real story is focused on an Irish politician played by Pierce Brosnan, who is actually Irish, but reviewers complained about his accent, which was fairly pronounced. This politician had a disreputable past as a terrorist, but is respectable. He is the center of the storm-no one is happy with him, and if he was not desperate to seem relevant, he would not seem complicit in the terrorist attack that killed Chan’s character’s daughter (not a spoiler, it is in the preview). The British and the titular character put pressure on him to come up with a culprit, and he discovers heretofore unknown dissension within his ranks, which you should be able to predict within the first five minutes if you have ever seen a movie.
The Foreigner’s main problem is that it is populated with a bunch of random people when we came to primarily see Chan. It is a classic bait and switch problem. If the marketing was different, maybe I could have enjoyed the movie more, but I think that it is unlikely because I hate international thrillers, which are really Lifetime movie for men in disguise. The British dealing with the IRA threat is a complete story, and the father seeking revenge against the IRA is a complete story, but combined it is too long and needlessly complicated. Also while no dogs died in the movie, one is separated from his human, and I have no idea if the dog gets reunited with his human being so thanks for that loose thread. Now I’m worried about that dog. It can’t handle life on the streets.
Chan as an underdog works, but you have to wait forty minutes to do his thing. It took 1 hour and 40 minutes to get a scene that actually made me feel a sense of urgency over a possible terrorist attack, and it only worked if you were invested in that tertiary character that we only see briefly at the beginning of the film then towards the end. It has Babel, Crash and Traffic ambitions, but does very little to make these brief moments memorable and become linked to a broader tapestry.
The Foreigner is interested in exploring the tragic Venn diagram of Brosnan and Chan’s characters. They are men with violent pasts who want to live quieter lives, but force themselves return to their earlier brutality to feel less impotent and irreverent. Sounds good on paper, but terrible in execution although I was psyched when Brosnan growled his former moniker while torturing a dude.
There was a story that sparked my interest that could have been an interesting, but quickly depicted then brushed aside as quickly as possible.
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The ongoing affair between the Irish politician’s wife and nephew was a shocking point of treachery. I saw the women can’t be trusted trope coming a mile away when the wife initially talked about her brother, and it is revealed that the politician is having an affair, but the idea that the nephew was also in cahoots was some Game of Thrones Lannister incest levels of unholy manipulation that made me clutch my pearls. When confronted, the nephew rushes to reassure his uncle that he was sleeping with his aunt in law, but was not part of her terrorist plots. Um, why not? That would have been a more interesting movie. In for a penny, in for a pound. The incest ended up being gratuitous instead of a crucial plot point so booooooooo.
Aside from a few excellent fight scenes, The Foreigner is a waste of time and a bit of a mess, especially for someone like me who hates thrillers like this one. Skip it.