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Saturday, November 4, 2017

MOVIE REVIEW/The Foreigner
Jackie Chan, Withered But Still Undefeated

A scene from Tomas Alfredson's drama "The Snowman", based on Jo Nesbo's novel.  STX
       
by Omar P.L. Moore/PopcornReel.com        Follow popcornreel on Twitter FOLLOW                                           
Saturday, November 4, 2017
Melancholy, agony and weathered faces punctuate "The Foreigner", Martin Campbell's blunt-force trauma action-thriller about territory, identity and anonymity.
Somewhere in London Quan (Jackie Chan) has lost his daughter in a terrorist attack.  His grief is second to an unyielding pursuit of the perpetrators, or at least a methodical, quietly persistent search for answers.  A Sinn Fein Gerry Adams-look alike Liam Hennessey (Pierce Brosnan) is trying to keep Quan at bay while reforming the organization that was a hallmark of terrorism.  It won't be easy.

Both these men are troubled souls and Mr. Campbell pits them against each other and as outsiders and irritants to the forces they seek to corral or control.  Quan calmly wants the truth about who killed his daughter.  Liam wants to mediate the itinerant powers in a dangerous organization. 

Based on the book "The Chinaman" Mr. Campbell's film is two separate movies, one a story of vengeance, the other a story of terrorial and political struggles in an organization whose power dynamics are shifting.  The latter story is given vastly more screentime.  And that is one issue "The Foreigner" has: a lack of cohesion, continuity and sense of center.  The second story is somewhat confusing -- at least for me -- I lost track midway through. 

Mr. Chan hasn't lost an action step though, and his stoic solemness as Quan brings an aura of peace to a jagged, brutal film of chaos, unseemliness and double-cross.  Committed and unbowed Mr. Chan walks and talks the part as Quan, a wise, weary, heartbroken man.  He is often stronger as a serious silent partner than as a hyper-activated presence.  Now 63, Mr. Chan continues his long tradition of doing his own stunts -- at least the majority of them.  He is indefatiguable.  Mr. Campbell nonetheless makes him a bit player not the lead U.S. ads and movie posters promise. 

Parts of "The Foreigner" are enjoyable if only fleetingly.  The sparse moments, like the whole film, are like hammers landing loudly or impacting softly.  Mr. Brosnan is full of his native brogue and rife with vinegar and indignation as Liam, an IRA man who wants to turn over a new leaf.  The former 007 is reduced to a litany of definitive expressions of disbelief or anger etched on his face.  The threads of "The Foreigner" are as tangled as the affairs in the movie.  There's bobbing, weaving and tenuous threadings of plot needles that don't hold.  And Mr. Chan feels like a ghost, a bookended presence always around the margins yet tangentially affecting outcomes in crucial ways.

Don't get me wrong: there are pulsating, tense moments of drama and soap opera to be indulged.  Guilty pleasures.  Some of the scandalous bits feel like filler for gratuity's sake or easy strawman plot disposal.  Throughout these raggedy affairs across the British Isles, Mr. Chan and Mr. Brosnan have a chemistry of brotherhood and understanding, not quite partners or friends but aging players in a world looking to discard them. 

"The Foreigner" is built on the idea that there's muck and mire many of its characters must swim through to come out clean or dirty on the other side.  The film is one big crude edition of an immigrant test that asks: can you pass this threshold and retain a semblance of your dignity in the morning?  Or in Quan's case, the mourning.  


Also with: Orla Brady, Rory Fleck-Byrne, Caolan Byrne, Dermot Crowley, Ray Fearon, Simon Kunz, Charlie Murphy, Michael McElhatton, Stephen Hogan, Liu Tao, Pippa Bennett-Warne, Katie Leung, Rufus Jones.

"The Foreigner" is rated R by the Motion Picture Association of America for violence, language and some sexual material.  The film's running time is one hour and 46 minutes.
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