THE FOREIGNER – A Review by Hollywood Hernandez
The Foreigner is Jackie Chan's first serious drama. He plays the father of a high school aged girl who is killed in a terrorist attack in London. After the attack we find out that Quan (Chan) is a former elite special forces soldier who fought in the Vietnam war. He gives up everything he owns to seek revenge on his daughter's killers.
After seeing a former IRA member on the news (Pierce Brosnan), who's now working as a liaison between the British and the IRA, he decides to camp on Liam Hennessy's doorstep in search of any information that can lead him to his daughter's killers.
We soon learn that Hennessy is not exactly squeaky clean in his dealings with the IRA and a trail of deceit and a serious espionage story begins to develop. This is where the story went a little off the ranch for me. I was enjoying the character development of Chan's character.
We see Chan and his tortured past and we see why the killing of his daughter is the overload that sends him out seeking only to harm and kill the perpetrators of the crime. At the age of 63, Chan still has that Kung Fu fighting magic and this is a rare occasion when I felt like more violence could have been included. The violence isn't gratuitous, it's a necessary part of the story. But unfortunately there are long periods without Chan's character in the movie. Instead the director chose to make the movie more about Brosnan's character and the often hard to follow story of political corruption.
There is enough of Chan's creative fight scenes to make the movie enjoyable, but I would have liked to have seen a little more. The movie is rated "R" for violence and some sexuality and it runs just under 2 hours.
On my "Hollywood Popcorn Scale" The Foreigner rates a LARGE.
