The Foreigner (2017)

The Foreigner is a 2017 action thriller film directed by Martin Campbell and written by David Marconi, based on the 1992 novel The Chinaman by Stephen Leather. An American-British-Chinese co-production, it stars Jackie Chan, Pierce Brosnan, Michael McElhatton, Liu Tao, Charlie Murphy, Orla Brady, and Katie Leung. The film follows a British-Nung Chinese man who seeks vengeance for the death of his youngest daughter. The Foreigner was released in China on 30 September 2017, in the United States on 13 October 2017, distributed by STXfilms, and in the United Kingdom in December 2017 on Netflix. The film grossed $145 million at the worldwide box office and was one of 2018’s top ten most-watched Netflix original films in the UK. It received generally favourable reviews from critics, with praise for the action sequences, score and against type performances of Chan and Brosnan, but criticism towards the formulaic action thriller plot.

Plot.

Ngoc Minh Quan, a widowed former Vietnam War special operations forces soldier, runs a Chinese restaurant in London with his business partner Lam and his teenage daughter Fan. When Fan is killed in a terrorist bombing, Quan seeks revenge. An Irish republican group calling itself the “Authentic IRA” claims responsibility. Quan takes to visiting Scotland Yard daily, asking for names of the bombers, but is told by police chief Commander Bromley that his repeated visits are diverting resources away from the investigation. Bromley advises Quan to be patient and warns him against going after the IRA. Undeterred, Quan takes matters into his own hands and focuses next on the Northern Ireland deputy First Minister and Sinn Féin politician Liam Hennessy, who speaks publicly about his status as a former Provisional IRA leader while outwardly claiming to condemn the attack. Quan purchases items to make homemade weapons and travels to Belfast, leaving the restaurant under Lam’s control.

Quan seeks out Hennessy at his office but Hennessy claims to have no knowledge of the bombing or its perpetrators before ejecting him from the premises. Quan does not believe him, and first sets off a homemade bomb in Hennessy’s building before leaving a fake explosive on Hennessy’s car as warnings, threatening worse unless he gets the bombers’ names. Hennessy tells his men to find Quan and stop him. Under pressure from the British government and hoping to shore up his political position ahead of upcoming Northern Irish Assembly elections, Hennessy tries to identify the culprits with help from his contacts. He orders that known IRA weapons dumps be searched for missing explosives, but the Authentic IRA catches on and outwits him. Quan observes Hennessy with his mistress, Maggie, and photographs them kissing in a restaurant. Hennessy’s men find Quan at his guesthouse but he fights them off and escapes.

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Quan then brings the fight to Hennessy, hiding in the trees outside Hennessy’s farmhouse and attacking it with more explosives. As Hennessy’s henchmen attempt to track him, Quan uses traps to disable them but is shot in the shoulder and flees. Tending to his wounds, Quan recalls his escape from Vietnam in which his first two daughters were kidnapped and killed by Thai pirates, before he and his wife reached Singapore. Hennessy also investigates Quan’s background and discovers he was a former guerrilla fighter who was recruited by US special forces in Vietnam. After Quan ambushes Hennessy in his house, the latter contacts his nephew Sean Morrison, a former Royal Irish Regiment soldier, in the hope that Morrison’s tracking skills can be used to stop Quan.

Production.

On 5 June 2015 it was announced that Jackie Chan would star in the action thriller film The Foreigner, for STX Entertainment, and based on Stephen Leather’s novel The Chinaman. Nick Cassavetes initially signed to direct the film, which was adapted from Leather’s novel by David Marconi, while Wayne Marc Godfrey was one of the producers. The film is partially set in Walworth, London. On 15 July 2015, Deadline reported that Martin Campbell was instead in talks to direct the film, while Relativity Media would finance. Campbell was paid $2 million for the film. Pierce Brosnan joined the cast alongside Chan in November. Brosnan previously starred in the 1995 film GoldenEye directed by Campbell. Co-stars Liu Tao and Chan attended the Shanghai Film Festival on 11 June 2016 to promote the film.

Release, Box office.

The Fyzz Facility produced, and is distributing, The Foreigner, in association with Sparkle Roll Media and Huayi Brothers, while STXfilms distributes it theatrically across the United States of America. It was released on 30 September 2017 in China and 13 October 2017 in the United States. In the Philippines, the film was distributed by Viva International Pictures on 18 October 2017. The Foreigner grossed $34.4 million in the United States and Canada, and $111 million in other countries for a worldwide total of $145.4 million, against a production budget of $35 million.

Home media.

In the United Kingdom, it was released in December 2017 on Netflix. It became one of the UK’s top ten most-watched Netflix original films of 2018, with a 0.37% share of the total Netflix content consumed in the UK that year. A DVD and Blu-ray released in the United States on 9 January 2018 and 23 January in Canada and the rest of the world.

Critical response.

On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 66% based on 126 reviews, with an average rating of 5.99/10. The site’s critical consensus reads, “The Foreigner adheres strictly to action thriller formula, but benefits from committed—and out of character—performances from its talented veteran stars.” On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 55 out of 100, based on 23 critics, indicating “mixed or average reviews”. Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of “A−” on an A+ to F scale, while PostTrak reported 78% of filmgoers gave it positive score. The film was viewed positively by most critics.

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Cast:

Jackie Chan as Quan Ngoc Minh
Pierce Brosnan as Liam Hennessy
Orla Brady as Mary Hennessy
Dermot Crowley as Hugh McGrath
Ray Fearon as Commander Richard Bromley
Rory Fleck Byrne as Sean Morrison
Michael McElhatton as Jim Kavanagh
Charlie Murphy as Maggie/Sara Mackay
Liu Tao as Lam
Lia Williams as Katherine Davies
Caolan Byrne as McCormick
John Cronin as Denis Fisher
Stephen Hogan as Christy Murphy
Rufus Jones as Ian Wood
Katie Leung as Fan
Niall McNamee as Patrick O’Reilly
Aaron Monaghan as Pat Nugent
David Pearse as Billy McMahon