"The Foreigner" stars Jackie Chan as a Chinaman living in London whose daughter is killed in act of terrorism. His desperate search to find the terrorists who killed his daughter lead him to Hennessy (Pierce Brosnan), a politician with a shady past.
This is a very different movie from Jackie Chan and I applaud that. I was intrigued by the trailer because it looked like Jackie Chan unhinged, and it practically is. He does a really good job here in a dark, gritty, realistic thriller and it's a thriller that doesn't really venture all that far into the action territoy. He doesn't really get to show off his kung-fu prowess, but more of him getting his ass kicked and fighting in a way that's more realistic than kung-fu. I give him very high praise for that as I thought he did an excellent job portraying a more complex character than we've seen from, one who had more of a tortured past and really just lost his last remaining remnant of his life.
Pierce Brosnan gives a solid performance as well. This might actually be his best post-Bond role and you could tell he was having fun portraying a more villainous type character, someone who you liked then was unlikeable, someone who is untrustworthy and shadowy, but at times understand his viewpoint. He was a bright spot that worked really well.
Martin Campbell directs this movie, who also directed Brosnan in "GoldenEye," Brosnan's first outing as James Bond, and the underrated Mel Gibson thriller "Edge of Darkness." This movie has a lot of similarities to "Edge of Darkness" and those types of movies like "Taken," and "Death Sentence." Campbell does a really great job of staging the action and tension, and proves that he has a real knack for providing realistic thrills when he directs movies not named "Green Lantern." I like watching his work. I think he has a great camera crew, stunt team, effects teams, all of that stuff that goes into the behind the scenes making of a movie, and he shines once again here.
As unoriginal as the movie may sound, it is a bit of a fresh take on the genre. However, with that being said, the first five minutes of this movie were the exact same thing as the first 10 minutes of "Edge of Darkness." To be honest this is basically the same movie as "Edge of Darkness." Both protagonists have their daughters killed, they go searching for answers, their search leads them to to conspiracy theories and political realms. It's basically the same movie unfortunately, and while the first half of this movie sets up a really good story within that familiarity that looks like it'll set this movie apart from the pack, the second half jumps into action movie cliché territory, not always, but quite a bit, and becomes bogged down into how convoluted the plot gets. Basically these terrorists are linked to this guy who's linked to this guy who may or may not know this guy who works for this guy.... it got to be too much towards the end and the movie lost me in some parts with it's political dialogue.
The action scenes though, when they go down, they go down. They are raw, they are dirty, they are realistic. This movie is a bit more violent then I thought it would be, but I still enjoyed watching the movie and I had a fun time with it. I think it's definitely worth another watch.
I am going to give "The Foreigner" a B-.
Check out my video review of "The Foreigner" here on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fUVN59I3WXo
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