Directed by Martin Campbell
Written by David Marconi, based on a novel by Stephen Leather
Starring Jackie Chan, Pierce Brosnan, Charlie Murphy
Running time: 1 hour and 53 minutes
MPAA rating: R for violence, language and some sexual material

by Hunter Bush

The Foreigner is a solid espionage/revenge thriller which suffers from some odd choices, the most noticeable being some of the dialogue, and a few instances of really sloppy editing. Jackie Chan plays a London man with a shadowy past whose daughter dies in an IRA bombing. When a government official (Pierce Brosnan) neglects to help him get revenge, Chan sets out on a quest for vengeance. You know, the usual. But with the pandemic induced release of No Time To Die delayed until the end of the year, I thought maybe some of you needed a James Bond-esque fix.

Dialogue-wise, this comes from screenwriter David Marconi, writer of Enemy of the State (1998) and Live Free or Die Hard (2007) which both also feature some goof troop dialogue as well. The difference is that this is a little more somber in tone than either of those. But when your characters espionage coded lingo includes them asking each other about their "dumps" and saying things like "I've been checking your dumps" and "All my dumps are in order", you're just begging me to still care about any tension in the scene. Sorry, I don't make the rules.

To be fair, this IS based on a novel by Stephen Leather, so the fault may originate there but that's no excuse really. The novel was originally called The Chinaman (it was the early 90's. Walter from The Big Lebowski would not explain that "Chinaman is not the preferred nomenclature. Asian American, please." for another 6 years!) but Marconi went ahead and changed THAT bit of phrasing, yet left all the dumps. That's a choice.

Anyway, The Foreigner is extremely competently directed which shouldn't be a surprise; Martin Campbell knows his way around action-centric espionage-skirting thrillers, having helmed GoldenEye (1995) and Casino Royale (2006).

But what really sings for me here is - and this should come as no surprise if you read my stuff - Jackie Chan! Jackie is older and wiser now than when I fell in love with him (aren't we all) but he's still excellent and, what's more, he's Acting! Jackie has always had charisma, and of course the complete mastery of movement within the physical world, but he's fucking crying here and it sent me (did I use that correctly?)! What I mean is, I was settling in for a tight little revenge thriller and I suddenly felt the weight of the sorrow that motivated that revenge.

I like the Taken movies and their ilk just fine but it's usually a fairly A-to-B logical connection that takes an outwardly average man (albeit one with a particular set of skills) and sets him on a path to revenge: "they" took/killed/framed his MacGuffin family member and he wants Revenge. That The Foreigner takes even the briefest of moments to attach genuine pathos to Chan's character is probably a testament to Jackie Chan as a person (or at least as a personality). He's so lovable that perhaps we'd be unable to fully buy him as a cold-hearted ass-kicking machine unless we were forced to watch that big, warm heart turn cold.

Chan isn't taking the bumps he used to, which is both our loss and simultaneously completely fucking fine and also; good for you Jackie! Take care of yourself my man! Doesn't matter though, as the action in this is still pretty stellar.

The only thing I can really ding this for is the editing. There are at least two instances of shots that were noticeably from earlier in a sequence being dropped in later on and I just can't figure out why? Each time it felt like the filmmakers (or the editor or whomever) felt like they needed to show the audience where Jackie was so we wouldn't forget but in both instances it's like: He's the main character. We are unlikely to lose his thread here... I just don't get it. There was also a really sloppily-edited dream/memory sequence. Just chopped to Hell.

A few random thoughts:

- Jackie and his daughter say "dance" the way I say it to my roommate's cat when I get him on his back and slowly spin him: "dahnce".

- The movie really gets going with that Seinfeld bit about which way is the "correct" way to pull into a parking spot.

- Jackie drugs a dog but makes a point to mention that the dog is fine and later we see that he kept his word. Jackie Chan is a treasure, folks.

- Pierce Brosnan's "That's me being nice." delivery is absolutely chilling; absolutely perfect.

- The police taking dude's laptop in the airport scene is unintentionally hilarious because no one tells him or the bystanders that it's a bomb. The cops just ask him "Are you Ian Wood? Is that your laptop?" and when he says yes they just take it and run off with it!

April 7th was Jackie Chan's 65th birthday. Watch The Foreigner (it's streaming on Netflix, Amazon and Showtime) and think about how much better any non-GoldenEye Brosnan-era '90s Bond flick would have been with Jackie as the villain. It was all I could think about. He would have been playing wildly against type, but perhaps whichever filmmaker would have had the forethought to give Jackie's villain the same kind of pathos as here and then we'd have been blessed with a prime Jack vs Pierce climactic action scene!

I can dream, can't I?

Happy Birthday, Jackie!