The Foreigner
- Aymen Saqib
- Oct 22, 2017
- 3 min read
Rating 7/10
Directed by Martin Campbell
Starring
Jackie Chan as Quan Ngoc Minh
Pierce Brosnan as Liam Hennessy
Rory Fleck-Byrne as Sean Morrison
As generic as its title, The Foreigner, stumbles to categorize itself. Is it an opening instalment to yet another superhero franchise –Chinaman? Or is it Liam Nesson’s father avenging daughter, “Taken”, rip-off? Our vote goes to Martin Campbell’s thriller being an incoherent history lesson about the exhausted Anglo-Irish conflicts as this latter stated dull-narrative increasingly overcasts the movie.
Gerald Seymour’s controversial quote, “One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter," happens to accurately describe The Foreigner’s plot. A few minutes into the movie, Quan Ngoc Minh loses his daughter, Fan, in a politically stirred terrorist attack carried out in England by an Ireland based group “Authentic IRA” whose motivations are solely based upon long held grievances regarding Anglo-Irish brawls and its aftermath.
Quan’s humble beginnings for revenge include waiting outside Scotland Yard’s office in hopes that they’ll cough out names of the people responsible. But the real action begins when Quan spots Irish Deputy Minister, Liam Hennessy, an overt former member of the IRA and becomes increasingly sure that he knows the culprits. A cat and mouse game begins between the two as Quan’s impulse for payback and the exposure of a chain of lies among Irish Nationalists drive the movie.
Quan is characterized as a feeble fellow. He talks weakly, sits in a crooked almost in a fetal position with a prominent sagging of facial features stamping a permanent gloomy expression on his face. Quan’s inquiry questions, “These bombers, will you catch them? Will they get punished?” would almost make you pity this miserable immigrant at the mercy of an alien regime on an alien land.
But as this former light hearted action comedy actor descend into the horrors of vengeance with his gruella tactics, viewers witness an emergence of his strikingly divergent China-man alter-ego: revenge driven ex-Navy Seal ass kicking machine.
However let’s not get too overwhelmed with that description as only less than a quarter of screen time is given to Quan and his story. Throughout the film Quan’s character building is rarely focused, the sub stories about his family, his past with the Special Forces and relation with daughter Fan aren’t carved sharply enough.
A few scenes which do exhibit the father-daughter bond include when Quan drops Fan outside the dresser, she flutters outside the car in a youthful demeanor while Quan in his fatherly nature worries that she crosses the road carefully. Just a few minutes later, following the blast, he’s holding his little girls dead body studded with lacerations and drenched in blood, sobbing as he realizes he has lost the only family he had left. This is one of the few vulnerable scene in Quan’s part which leaves the audience thirsty for more.
All the major focus is given to a political narrative which vigorously entwines the crafty second lead, Hennessy. The former terrorist turned peacemaker still has a few tricks up his sleeve to solidify his political standing. But all his schemes face friction not only at the hands of Quan but also due to foes within his own ranks. Hennessy’s sub stories, all richly covered, include his troubled married life, affair with a rather treacherous mistress, his frenemies with secrets and a close nephew-uncle relationship which tactfully interact as the movie progresses and lead to Hennessy’s eventual demise.
This makes it quite clear that Quan doesn’t single handedly bring down Hennessy rather it was a collective push of various factors that toppled him. Simultaneously, also that Quan’s character isn’t as powerful as that of Hennessy’s.
Apart from Quan and Hennessy, a quite other characters grip the movie which include Scotland Yard’s officer Richard Bromley, Hennessy’s wife Mary, mistress Sara McKay aka Maggie and nephew Sean Morrison. But none of these characters are allowed to grow as the movie progresses given their vital role in the buildup of the movie, rather their appearance is so spread out and disjointed that one almost wonders if they are key characters? (They are).
A compelling reason to watch The Foreigner might include simply wanting to see Jackie Chan, a former light hearted action comedy actor in his never seen before pensive, grief stricken performance. But rather and after making Chan the face of the film in every poster and trailer of the movie, Martin Campbell delivers a political thriller concentrating entirely on Pierce Brosnan.
So it’s a rather simple equation if you are spending your money wanting to see Jackie Chan, it’s a “nay” from our side. But if you want a completely baffling, disjointed narrative on past Anglo-Irish relations which forces you to open a history tab on your devices then by all means.
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