The Foreigner is a gritty and realistic tale of power and corruption with Jackie Chan in a dramatic role unlike any we’ve seen from him before. Behind his fast-as-lightning martial arts, though, is a grim and empty man with tears rolling down his cheeks. These tears poignantly show us the inner pain he is dealing with following the death of his daughter in a terrorist bombing after she goes into a dress shop. He plays a character named Quan Ngoc Minh, who, when he gets nowhere with the police or the higher-ups in both England and Ireland (the bombers are believed to be a radical Irish terrorist group), takes matters into his own hands. This is a story of back-stabbing and betrayal and not everyone is who they appear to be.
Pierce Brosnan, like Chan, gives a strong performance, playing a government official name Liam Hennessy, a man not to be trifled with. There is more to him than meets the eye, and as the layers of his character are peeled away, we see complex sides of him that speak of both good and evil. There are a few surprises along the way, and the story is riveting as the viewer watches just how far Minh will go to exercise his price of revenge in a way, as a modern-day Rambo. However, despite the interesting story, there are at least 19 uses of “J”, “JC”, and “Ch*ist”, not to mention umpteen utterances of the “F” bomb, as well as bloody violence and a man and his wife each cheating on one another; therefore, we can’t present our Dove Seal to this movie. This is a story that will probably solicit some sympathy for Chan’s character, as a man that had lost two daughters already, and a wife, and anyone that has had someone taken from them may well relate to this movie and to the main character’s need for justice.
