The Foreigner
Jackie Chan is out to avenge his daughter's murder in this action thriller co-starring Pierce Brosnan and directed by Kiwi Martin Campbell (Casino Royale).
Quan (Chan) is a humble London businessman whose long-buried past erupts in a revenge-fueled vendetta when the only person left for him to love - his teenage daughter - dies in a senseless act of politically motivated terrorism. His relentless search to find the terrorists leads to a cat-and-mouse conflict with a British government official (Brosnan) whose own past may hold the clues to the identities of the elusive killers.
2017Rating: MA15+, Strong themes, violence and coarse language110 minsUK, China
ActionThriller
- Director:
- Martin Campbell ('Casino Royale', 'GoldenEye', 'Green Lantern')
- Writer:
- David Marconi
- Cast:
- Jackie ChanPierce BrosnanCharlie MurphyKatie LeungSimon KunzDermot CrowleyRory Fleck-ByrneRufus Jones
The Foreigner / Reviews
South China Morning Post
An old-school political thriller that holds its course right until the end.
Full reviewA.V. Club
The Foreigner is a good, lean cut of meat - in other words, a typical Martin Campbell movie - expeditious and cold-blooded in its cross-cut, cloak-and-dagger plotting and violence.
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Film School Rejects
It's no franchise-starter, a la Taken, but (it's) a terrific action/drama all the same.
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IGN
The Foreigner uses the talents of both Jackie Chan and Pierce Brosnan quite well, turning the well-worn personas of both actors on their heads.
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San Francisco Chronicle
Someone has finally figured out what to do with Jackie Chan in America. This formula is the right one.
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IndieWire
It's like someone closed their eyes, grabbed two random DVDs off of a bargain rack, and edited them into an almost-coherent thriller.
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The Straits Times
A movie that cannot seem to reconcile its hard, Rambo-ish violence with a convoluted conspiracy plot...
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Variety
The movie is keenly aware of the West's long tradition of white-on-Asian racism, and "The Foreigner" flips the script on the tradition of Hollywood studio movies in which a white hero kicks foreign butt in some exotic country.
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The New York Times
Mr. Chan is in his early 60s, and he doesn't deliver the action pizazz here that he used to. Nor, frankly, does he summon enough gravitas to be persuasive in the role of a grief-maddened father.
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Screen Daily
Campbell's unfussy style works well with Chan's choreography. The star's willingness to look his 63 years makes the falls look like they really hurt and creates a sense of jeopardy when Quan finds himself outnumbered.
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Rolling Stone
Campbell keeps the action cooking and the suspense on a high burner in this compulsively watchable conspiracy thriller, while The Foreigner proves again is that Chan is the Man – now and forever.
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NPR
No ticket-buying constituency is likely to feel well-served by The Foreigner, a chilly marriage of political thriller and latter-day Liam Neeson-style geriatric revenge-o-rama.
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Hollywood Reporter
It's good to see Chan swapping his happy-go-lucky persona for two hours for some gravitas as a tragic rogue with a marked past.
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