The Foreigner (4 Stars)

Amazon Friday #13

This is the second time in two weeks that I've presented my Amazon Friday feature on a Sunday. My excuse is that I received the "Bikini Jones" Blu-ray in the post on Friday afternoon, and I was too excited to delay watching it. I know that's not a very good excuse, but it's all you're going to get from me.

"The Foreigner" is a 2017 political thriller starring Pierce Brosnan and Jackie Chan. It's the first film in which I've heard Pierce Brosnan speaking with an Irish accent.

Jackie Chan plays Ngoc Minh Quan, a Vietnam War veteran who's been living in London for 30 years and is now a British citizen. His teenage daughter Fan is killed in a bomb attack by a group that calls itself the Authentic IRA. They reject the 1998 Good Friday Agreement and want to resume the fight to expel the British from Northern Ireland.

Quan wants revenge. He visits the police repeatedly, waiting for hours, and demands that the case be dealt with speedily. The police can't help him, because it's an ongoing case and they still don't have suspects. After hearing Liam Hennessy, the Deputy Irish First Minister, speak on television about the attack, Quan turns his attention to him. Hennessy was a terrorist in the 1990's, but is now a respectable Sinn Fein politician who supports the peace process. He's promised to find the ones responsible, but Quan suspects he knows more than he's admitting.

Quan flies to Belfast and visits Hennessy's office, not leaving until he gets an appointment. Hennessy gives him the same story as the London police, but this time Quan increases the pressure. He plants a bomb in the toilet of Hennessy's building as a warning. He follows this up with bomb attacks on Hennessy's country house, where he lives with his wife. He takes photos of Hennessy with his mistress, so that he can blackmail him.

It's true, Hennessy doesn't know the identity of the bombers, but he suspects who they might be working for. While running from Quan's attacks, he puts pressure on his former terrorist contacts, trying to get someone to speak.

This is a fascinating film, untypical for Jackie Chan. Usually he plays the good guy, but in this case he acts illegally, doing whatever he can to get revenge on his daughter's killers. There are a few fight scenes, in which he shows off his martial arts skills, but the fighting isn't as exaggerated and over-the-top as in his other films. Nevertheless, he's more than a match for the security guards standing between him and Hennessy.

It's curious that "The Foreigner" was never shown in UK cinemas. Is the subject matter too sensitive? It still hasn't been released on disc in the UK, but you can buy it from America or Germany.

Success Rate:  + 1.0

	Order from Amazon.com
	Order from Amazon.de