Movie Review – The Foreigner

The Foreigner US/UK (2017) Dir. Martin Campbell I’m going to do something I have never done before – I’m going to start with a brag. Around 3:30 in this film, two young girls are shown leaving a shop as the main character’s daughter arrives. Both actresses are uncredited, but I can tell you the one of the left in the checked coat is Hannah Whitehead. I know because she starred in a short film of mine in 2016, Meet Dexter To this film, and Chinese immigrant Quan Ngoc Minh (Jackie Chan) takes his daughter Fan (Katie Leung) to get a dress when a bomb is detonated, killing Fan and eleven other people. A group calling themselves the Authentic IRA take credit for it but remain anonymous. Quan visits Commander Bromley (Ray Fearon) of Scotland Yard offering him £20,000 for information but is sent away for hindering the investigation. Quan then calls deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland Liam Hennessy (Pierce Brosnan), a former IRA member who has since denounced all violence, suspecting he might know who the bombers are. Hennessy pleads ignorance but Quan doesn’t believe him, and targets Hennessy until he gives him answers. Hennessy has other problems as he is indirectly connected with the bombers and needs to hide this before the police catch him. Confession: I’ve been wanting to see this film for a while, not just because I’m a Jackie Chan fan but because I didn’t know about it until Hannah mentioned her part in it, having to spend five hours playing dead! I was always frustrated at the lack of a Blu-ray release until I found it on Netflix by accident days before it was due to leave the platform, unaware it was an original production for them. One of their most watched and successful films, The Foreigner is based on the 1992 novel The Chinaman by Stephen Leather, the name change I suspect reflecting modern sensibilities. At a glance, the plot reads as Jackie Chan vs. the IRA; given he has fought just about everyone else in his storied career, their time was due. However, it isn’t that simple; this is a heavily political tale where just as many battles are conducted over the phone as they are with guns. Normally running a small Chinese restaurant, Quan is a humble man with a half-Vietnamese background. Leaving that country he lost two daughters to pirates then his wife died giving birth to Fan. Now she is gone, Quan is a broken man with revenge on his mind. Oh, did I mention he is also ex-special ops agent with an unimpeachable record as a killing machine? It’s one way to facilitate Chan’s fighting skills without resorting to stereotypes. Meanwhile, Hennessy is trying to save his own skin when it is discovered the bombers used Semtex which went missing from supplies Hennessy is connected to, whilst some of his former comrades have shifted over to British politics and even the police forced, but refuse to help him unless he gives them the names of the bombers. And with having to move his wife Mary (Orla Brady) around for her safety, Hennessy is having an affair with Maggie (Charlie Murphy), leaving him open with two potential avenues for anyone wanting to target him. Further complications arrive with Hennessy’s nephew, former solider Sean Morrison (Rory Fleck Byrne), who knows more than he is letting on. He tells Bromley about the code words given by the bombers before each explosion to help the investigation, expediate their arrest and steer attention away from Hennessy. However, when a bus is bombed, the code word used is not the same one Sean gave, exposing a mole somewhere in this convoluted web. And indeed it is convoluted, as new faces pop up with regularity to change the trajectory of the story, whilst others are unable to pick a side and shift their loyalties like clockwork; Hennessy himself constantly switches from antagonist to protagonist and back again. He may have left the violent doctrines of the IRA behind but he is still up to his neck in political corruption, making it harder to divine when he is acting in self-interest or for the greater moral good. Perhaps it is more a question of circumstance for Hennessy – he’s a good guy when weeding out traitors and those out to implicate him, a bad guy when up against Quan, whose thirst for vengeance makes him less of an emotional protagonist more of a moral vigilante the audience vicariously roots for; indeed, it is great fun seeing this saturnine little Asian chap run rings around armed men with his combination of ninja and Rambo practical warfare. Directed by Martin Campbell of Casino Royale fame among others, this is a well-paced thriller with the only flaw of getting too bogged down with the political entanglements that Quan’s vengeance sometimes gets forgotten. Not as generously budgeted as the Bond films at $35 million (which it recouped in Chinese cinemas alone), the atmosphere of the UK locations give it a grounded, earthy feel akin to such British classics as The Long Good Friday. Jackie Chan gets to display some of his trademark kung fu along with military offence yet the real story is the dramatic heft of Quan’s plight, eschewing humour for a straight performance. As the grieving father, he conveys this pain and heartbreak with veteran intuition and nuance, his quiet, downbeat mein hiding the raging vengeful fire in his soul. Pierce Brosnan tries to recall his Irish roots yet the accent is often unconvincing, but not enough to prevent his turn as Hennessy from being effective in relaying his charismatic, duplicitous qualities. When you consider how many of the recent works of Jackie Chan have been objectively pitiful, The Foreigner is a glowing exception that more people should see outside of the Netflix bubble to appreciate how good an actor he can be, whilst enjoying this taut, complex thriller that won fewer awards than Meet Dexter did!