The Foreigner (2017)

The Foreigner (2017)

7/10

Starring

Jackie Chan

Pierce Brosnan

Directed by Martin Campbell

Different is good and Jackie Chan is suited for the change. Here is a movie with no comic relief, but a direct combat film where there is deep political tone, terrorism and our hero out on a revenge mission.

We are used to the soft Jackie Chan performing good deeds in his movies. In this here movie we do not find him cleaning up dirt, trying to save a baby or being the all-round good guy.

He is the anti-hero in this film, hell bent on bringing down a terrorist group and everyone involved in the death of his only living relative, his daughter.

This movie is an adaptation of Stephen Leather's 1992 novel The Chinaman. It is a British-Chinese co-production and it stars Jackie Chan and Pierce Brosnan in non-type casted roles.

This movie starts with the introduction of Ngoc Minh Quan (Jackie Chan) who is a retired Vietnam War special forces operator and now runs a Chinese restaurant in London.

His daughter Fan was killed in a department store bombing, the moment he drops her off to go buy a dress. The bombing was claimed by an Irish group calling themselves the "Authentic UDI."

Disgruntled by the handling of the case, he tried to see if bribing the man in charge of the case to see if that will help him get the names of the people who killed his only surviving family.

When the whole bribing did not yield anything, he saw on TV that the British government were working with a certain Liam Hennessy (Pierce Brosnan), a former IRA member turned Irish government official, Quan went to where Liam was working and demanded the name of the people involved.

Upon not getting any answer and believing that Liam had everything to do with the bombing, Quan decided to get the names out of Liam by any means necessary.

This then involved Quan blowing up things attached to Liam, threating the life of his men and the life of his family, blackmailing and stalking Liam. At every action against Liam, he kept focus and asked at each turn for the names of the criminals.

The movie is very interesting, exciting and even though you can sense the cliché and the whole possibility of not being surprised at the capability of Jackie Chan himself, the movie delivered the needed thrill.

Every moment in the movie is not one to regret and I can bet you will be looking forward to owning a copy of this movie when the DVD comes out.