It’s not hard to find some great action movies featuring either Jackie Chan or Pierce Brosnan, but some people may not even know that they were in a film together. The wonderful 2017 action thriller featuring both men is calledThe Foreignerand was directed by Martin Campbell. If that name sounds familiar, it’s because Campbell also directed major films likeGoldenEyeandthe Bond film everyone wanted to be a part of,Casino Royale.
The rest of the cast and crew is rounded out with plenty of talented names, but just those three alone should be more than enough to get the average action fan excited aboutThe Foreigner. Despite both Pierce Brosnan andthe always action-comedy-ready Jackie Changetting up there in age, there’s never a dull moment with the film managing to play to each man’s strengths.
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What is The Foreigner about?
The Foreigneris a tale of revenge and political intrigue at its very core. After the death of his daughter, Jackie Chan’s Quan Ngoc Minh goes on a path of vengeance in order to bring justice to the person he believes is responsible for his loss. The catch here is that Quan is actually an ex-special forces operativewho served in the Vietnam War, making him one of the most dangerous men on the planet to cross. Considering his daughter’s death occurred in a completely avoidable terrorist attack by a group of Irish extremists in London, one of the most notable figures of the IRA’s past and a current politician, Pierce Brosnan’s Liam Hennessy, becomes the target of Quan’s quest for revenge.
All throughout the film, Quan is riddled with the grief of having lost his daughter and left to decide how to proceed in a world whose random cruelty has left him in a rage. When the law continues to fail Quan, he makes it clear that he’ll find those responsible himself if he has to. Despite the protest of those investigating the bombing that took his daughter’s life, Quan goes to great lengths to track down those responsible within the IRA and bring them to justice. Unfortunately for those within the Authentic IRA, Quan isn’t interested in any kind of mercy, as he’s become a man possessed since there was no mercy shown against his innocent young girl.
At the same time, Liam is dealing with the ever-twisting group known as the Authentic IRA, a group that seems to have its own hidden goals at times. Due to Liam’sslippery nature as a career politician, he finds himself tied into the various factions of the IRA in one way or another, and whether he likes it or not, their actions reflect directly on him. Liam may not be one to be trusted, even by the viewer, but neither are any of the people he surrounds himself with, something even he comes to learn throughout the movie.
What is The Foreigner’s Rotten Tomatoes score?
It may be a bit of a surprise to anyone intrigued by the movie thus far to learn that critics aren’t really big fans ofThe Foreigner. The Rotten Tomatoes score forThe Foreigneris sitting at a mild 66% from critics, though fans have seen the film in a much more favorable light with them rating the film at 72%. Sadly, if you filter the critics just to what the site considers to be “top critics” the rating for the film drops down even further to a measly 52%, and while not great that isstill better than the many films with 0%. The consensus of the critics seems to be that the film itself is a fairly standard action thriller plot, something that isn’t necessarily a bad thing for fans of either the genre itself or the men involved in the film. At the same time, both fans and critics seem to love the different styles of character that both Jackie Chan and Pierce Brosnan work in the film, allowing both stars to show off their acting chops in distinctive new ways.
Fans of both Jackie Chan and Pierce Brosnan shouldn’t expect the same level of action the men were capable of in their prime films likePolice StoryorDragons Foreverfor Chan orGoldenEyeandThe World Is Not Enoughfor Brosnan’s 007. Instead of that, what fans of both men will get are nuanced and intense performances that are much more dramatically focused. Each man commands each and every scene that they are in, making each time the two are close as electric as possible. This doesn’t mean that there isn’t plenty of classic Jackie Chan action to enjoy throughout, but it certainly is not as bombastic as previous films.
How Does The Foreigner End?
Despite all the violence and twists, it turns out that Liam is far from an innocent man, and thanks to a combination of his own mistakes and the plotting of the Authentic IRA, he finds himself implicated invarious terrorist plots. It turns out that Liam’s wife and his mistress have both been conspiring against him the entire time in order to make sure that he’d support the ongoing terrorism or lose his career. At the same time, Quan had learned the names of those responsible for his daughter’s death after a tense encounter in the woods with a group of Liam’s thugs, namely, Liam’s nephew Sean.
With everything out in the open, all forces converge at the terrorist headquarters in London, though Quan is the first to make it to the group. He decimates the entire group, save for Liam’s mistress, and the police arrive to thwart the final terrorist plot of the film, ensuring that a bomb is unable to harm any innocents. With the plots seemingly coming to a halt, Liam finds out that his political power will remain intact thanks to his help dealing with the terrorists, even if it means he’s become nothing but another pawn in a political game. Liamheads to New Yorkas his nephew Sean kills Liam’s unfaithful wife, ensuring that the terrorist plots would come to an end for good.
Rather than that being where the story ends, Quan meets Liam in his hotel room to reveal that he has evidence that links Liam to the terrorist plots, including the one that resulted in the death of his daughter. After uploading an image of Liam with Maggie, the now-known Authentic IRA terrorist, Quan is finally satisfied with his revenge, knowing that all the people responsible for his daughter’s death have been dealt varying levels of justice. Instead of a swift death, Liam will be left with a life in ruin and be forced to live out his days with whatever punishment falls into his lap. Meanwhile, Quan returns to his simple life running a restaurant, though still under police surveillance.
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