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R-Rated Thriller/Action

The Foreigner is the new Jackie Chan movie involving terrorism involving Northern Island and the United Kingdom based on the novel “The Chinaman”. The story begins with Quan (Jackie Chan) and his daughter Fan (Katie Leung) shopping for a formal dress. The store is destroyed by a bomb planted by a terrorist group with political motivations and we see Quan mourning his daughter, the last member of his family. Quan decides to make this terrorist attack personal and hunt down the people responsible for his daughter’s death. This involves heated negotiations with a British official, Liam Hennessy (Pierce Brosnan), to stop the terrorist group. Jackie Chan was able to use his acting skills to fully draw out the drama and plot in this movie. While at times the politics behind the plot get a bit boring, it shows that no one is truly innocent in this movie which is a great parallel to current events.

Many wondered how Chan’s age would impact his ability to showcase the martial arts moves he is known for, but he still impressively packs the punch so to speak multiple times throughout the movie. Even though Chan is advertised as the film’s protagonist, he has less screen time than expected. When his action is on screen it is without a doubt impressive and thrilling, but the true protagonist is Brosan’s character.

This movie could have used less focus on politics that many of its viewers are not well versed or even interested in and instead focused on Chan’s take down of the government officials and terrorist group in his way. The confusing political backstory and verbiage associated with it makes for a slightly confusing plot at times. Even though the plot seems jumbled and dull at times, The Foreigner is definitely better than it seems on paper. This movie might not be worth the full price of admission for those who are not huge Jackie Chan fans, see it with a student discount or maybe wait for it to come out on Redbox or Netflix.