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The trailer plays up some of the stunt and fight work that is in the movie, which may lead you to think that Chan is returning to his old style of fast, high-choreography, fight-centric movies. He's not. Fortunately, he's also taking a sharp departure from the slapstick physical humor of movies like the Rush Hour franchise. 3.5/5 stars for being good at what it does but a little too formulaic for my taste.
The Foreigner is an interesting take on a bog-standard plot we've seen from Hollywood a million times: bad guys do something horrible to an innocent man (always a man) - usually killing or kidnapping loved ones (usually female) - and the innocent guy turns out to be some kind of super ninja commando special forces dude who goes ape and kills all the bad guys, cue tense muscle-bulging and strained horn sections the end. Oh, and with lots of explosions, gunfire, car chases, stunt fighting and special effects in between.
So, yeah. This is not exactly that, but it's a close cousin. Chan is a man with a past whose only remaining family member (a young daughter) is killed in a terrorist bombing. He proceeds to hunt down the bombers. There are really no surprises here. What makes it different is how it's set, and how it's done. Chan plays Quan Ngoc Minh who is referred to throughout the film as a "Chinaman" but is clearly intended to be Vietnamese. Since the actor is himself Chinese I can't tell if this is supposed to be a (not very) subtle comment on the (racist) inability of white people to tell Asian people apart. In this movie the white people aren't Americans - they're British and Irish - but the question remains. Chan's acting is good, given the limitations, but I still wonder.
In addition, the film (at least as I saw it) is entirely subtitled. When the characters speak English the subtitles are in what I think is a Chinese language; when the characters switch languages the subtitles switch to English. I found this distracting at first but by the end I was able to ignore it. I'm wondering if this subtitling was an artifact of where I saw the film (*) or of the way the film was made for international audiences.
Minh is a long-established British resident, raising his daughter, owning and running a restaurant. One day he takes his daughter to get her prom dress and the dress shop is destroyed in a bomb blast that nominally targets the Barclay's bank next door. Minh's daughter is killed, along with many others, and a renegade offshoot of the IRA claims responsibility.
Ray Fearon does a fine job as Commander Richard Bromley, the head of the police unit that takes charge of the bombing response. The police aren't slacking off, but the bombers have taken steps to conceal their identities despite the pervasive surveillance in London and it takes time. Minh is not willing to wait and tries various strategies to speed things up. When he is gently turned aside by Bromley and the rest of the authorities he takes matters into his own hands. This sets up a race between the professionals and one dedicated amateur.
Both paths lead to Liam Hennessy, ably played by Pierce Brosnan (himself native Irish). Hennessy is a "former" IRA leader who now works on the local government as an arm of the British administration. He portrays himself as a peacemaker, someone who has turned away from his own terrorist past in favor of the benefits of coexistence. Fearon, and others in the UK establishment, work with him both officially and under the table. He clearly maintains his old contacts and they want him to use that network to find the bombers. Minh sees Hennessy on the news and reasons that here is a person who either is IRA or knows them. So Minh goes after Hennessy and the two clash.
There is a web of supporting characters - at one level the movie is about what does it mean to be loyal and Minh is clearly the stand-out as the only character with no mixed or hidden motives. Most of the supporting roles are not given a lot of screen time, as this is Minh's story, but I particularly liked Orla Brady as Mary Hennessy, wife of Liam but clearly a woman with her own agenda.
The movie moves along at a decent pace, with minimal use of fancy SFX, no silly car chases, and generally logical behavior on the part of its characters. At the end, I saw this was adapted from a novel and looking backward I can see where they likely cut things that are probably explored in more depth in the book. I might get it just to see if my guesses were right - but the cutting didn't impair my enjoyment.
There is one thing, though, and it requires HUGE spoilers, so it's going to get cut...
( you need to have seen the movie to understand this anyway )
(*) Houston remains the most diverse major metropolis in the US. That is, it's the city with the most number of non-American communities present by percentage of population, as well as overall percentage of non-European/white residents. The theater where I saw this was in a heavily Arab part of the city - all the shops had signs in Arabic, etc - and the theater was advertising the 20th Annual Polish Film Festival.
The Foreigner is an interesting take on a bog-standard plot we've seen from Hollywood a million times: bad guys do something horrible to an innocent man (always a man) - usually killing or kidnapping loved ones (usually female) - and the innocent guy turns out to be some kind of super ninja commando special forces dude who goes ape and kills all the bad guys, cue tense muscle-bulging and strained horn sections the end. Oh, and with lots of explosions, gunfire, car chases, stunt fighting and special effects in between.
So, yeah. This is not exactly that, but it's a close cousin. Chan is a man with a past whose only remaining family member (a young daughter) is killed in a terrorist bombing. He proceeds to hunt down the bombers. There are really no surprises here. What makes it different is how it's set, and how it's done. Chan plays Quan Ngoc Minh who is referred to throughout the film as a "Chinaman" but is clearly intended to be Vietnamese. Since the actor is himself Chinese I can't tell if this is supposed to be a (not very) subtle comment on the (racist) inability of white people to tell Asian people apart. In this movie the white people aren't Americans - they're British and Irish - but the question remains. Chan's acting is good, given the limitations, but I still wonder.
In addition, the film (at least as I saw it) is entirely subtitled. When the characters speak English the subtitles are in what I think is a Chinese language; when the characters switch languages the subtitles switch to English. I found this distracting at first but by the end I was able to ignore it. I'm wondering if this subtitling was an artifact of where I saw the film (*) or of the way the film was made for international audiences.
Minh is a long-established British resident, raising his daughter, owning and running a restaurant. One day he takes his daughter to get her prom dress and the dress shop is destroyed in a bomb blast that nominally targets the Barclay's bank next door. Minh's daughter is killed, along with many others, and a renegade offshoot of the IRA claims responsibility.
Ray Fearon does a fine job as Commander Richard Bromley, the head of the police unit that takes charge of the bombing response. The police aren't slacking off, but the bombers have taken steps to conceal their identities despite the pervasive surveillance in London and it takes time. Minh is not willing to wait and tries various strategies to speed things up. When he is gently turned aside by Bromley and the rest of the authorities he takes matters into his own hands. This sets up a race between the professionals and one dedicated amateur.
Both paths lead to Liam Hennessy, ably played by Pierce Brosnan (himself native Irish). Hennessy is a "former" IRA leader who now works on the local government as an arm of the British administration. He portrays himself as a peacemaker, someone who has turned away from his own terrorist past in favor of the benefits of coexistence. Fearon, and others in the UK establishment, work with him both officially and under the table. He clearly maintains his old contacts and they want him to use that network to find the bombers. Minh sees Hennessy on the news and reasons that here is a person who either is IRA or knows them. So Minh goes after Hennessy and the two clash.
There is a web of supporting characters - at one level the movie is about what does it mean to be loyal and Minh is clearly the stand-out as the only character with no mixed or hidden motives. Most of the supporting roles are not given a lot of screen time, as this is Minh's story, but I particularly liked Orla Brady as Mary Hennessy, wife of Liam but clearly a woman with her own agenda.
The movie moves along at a decent pace, with minimal use of fancy SFX, no silly car chases, and generally logical behavior on the part of its characters. At the end, I saw this was adapted from a novel and looking backward I can see where they likely cut things that are probably explored in more depth in the book. I might get it just to see if my guesses were right - but the cutting didn't impair my enjoyment.
There is one thing, though, and it requires HUGE spoilers, so it's going to get cut...
( you need to have seen the movie to understand this anyway )
(*) Houston remains the most diverse major metropolis in the US. That is, it's the city with the most number of non-American communities present by percentage of population, as well as overall percentage of non-European/white residents. The theater where I saw this was in a heavily Arab part of the city - all the shops had signs in Arabic, etc - and the theater was advertising the 20th Annual Polish Film Festival.
