The Foreigner Needed, To Quote Toby Keith, A Little Less Talk And A Lot More Action

As The Foreigner starts, we're given no real introduction to the character of Ngoc Minh Quan (Jackie Chan), there's no flashback sequence to inform the audience of some kind of tragic backstory, he's just a dude who's trying to get his teenage daughter to a local store so she can get the dress she needs for a school dance. Right after he drops her off to go into that store while he parks the car, a bomb goes off that kills Quan's daughter, leaving him distraught and shaken. His daughter was the only family he had left, and as we later learn Quan had previously family members under similarly tragic circumstances, this seemingly normal guy snaps and begins a quest for vengeance.


Specifically, Quan wants the names of the people behind the bombing. Since an Irish-based terrorist group is claiming responsibility for the attack, Quan goes after politician Liam Hennessey (Pierce Brosnan), who once had previous ties to this organization. Hennessey truthfully claims he has no idea who the identity of these attackers could be, though he does harbor some suspicions that someone in his ranks could be helping out these terrorists. Of course, Quan isn't going to just stop there, he's got nothing to lose and wants to avenge his daughter. So begins a violent pursuit for the truth that's gonna challenge both men and push them to new limits as people.

The Foreigner seems very much like a movie that, just like 75% of Liam Neeson's work as an actor in the last decade and films like The Gunman, was made to cash in on the success of Taken by pairing up a well-known elderly male actor with grim vengeful action. The Foreigner fares better than the Taken movies overall, though it shares those movies uncomfortably relaxed stance on using torture to get what you want. Just like how Neeson is always giving better performances than the Taken movies deserve, Jackie Chan is a high point of The Foreigner in the dour role of Ngoc Minh Quan as Chan channels the world-weary demeanor that informed his most tragic scene in that 2010 Karate Kid movie for an entire movie to effective results.

The stuntwork Chan and his various stunt doubles pull off in the assorted action scenes of The Foreigner provide solid entertainment and the way Quan is shown to typically be improvising his next move in these fight scenes lends a sense of realism that feels fitting for the tone of this motion picture. Director Martin Campbell seems to have a more assured hand in directing action scenes than the frantically assembled action sequences seen in the works of filmmakers like Oliver Megaton. I just wish there was more action in here because, like this past summer's Atomic Blonde, The Foreigner has a good lead performance and some fun action that gets bogged down in a messy plot that is far too overcomplicated for its own good.

Far too much time is spent on political conspiracy and intrigue revolving around Pierce Brosnan's character with a large chunk of the second act eschewing Jackie Chan and his quest for vengeance entirely just to concentrate on this one segment of the plot. There's a handful of other subplots, including an affair Hennessey's wife is carrying on about and a journalist who gets inadvertently gets caught up in the plans of the movie's villains, feel like further extraneous bits of storytelling in a motion picture that's already getting heavily weighed down by sloppy storytelling. Screenwriter David Marconi has some fun action beats in his writing here but he just can't make the political subterfuge all that engaging.

The writing also fails to make any other character that isn't played by Pierce Brosnan or Jackie Chan pretty forgettable, especially the features adversaries, who mostly just hang out in an apartment for the duration of their screentime. Not being able to have some entertainingly over-the-top foes for Jackie Chan to face off with feels like the worst side effect of The Foreigner constantly striving, frequently to its own detriment, for gritty realism. But gritty realism is the aesthetic the Taken movies channeled so that's what The Foreigner must do too. To be fair, I've seen worse Taken knock-off's than The Foreigner (most notably the Taken sequels!) but The Foreigner still feels like a far too overcomplicated endeavor considering all anyone wants to see is Jackie Chan beat people up, not tedious political conspiracies.