Jackie
Chan is sixty-two and has broken more bones than most people knew they had. The
same is true of Quan Ngoc Minh. The Chinese-Vietnamese Navy SEAL-trained
commando lost nearly everything after the fall of South Vietnam, but he was
content to watch his young daughter grow up safe and happy in London. When she
is cruelly murdered in an IRA splinter group’s terrorist attack, Quan will stop
at nothing to avenge her. Of course, he will need names, which he assumes the
former IRA deputy minister for Northern Ireland Affairs can supply (and not
without reason). A violent cat-and-mouse game thusly commences in Martin
Campbell’s The Foreigner, which opens tomorrow in New York.
Quan
and his family were part of the Vietnamese boat people exodus, but his first
two daughters were murdered by Thai pirates before they reached Singapore. From
there, Quan managed to immigrate to England and establish legal citizenship,
but his wife died giving birth to Fan. When the so-called “Real IRA” blows up
the dress shop she was patronizing, Quan’s American training kicks in.
Hardnosed
Commander Bromley is leading the investigation. He doesn’t seem to have many
leads or any love for the IRA, so Quan keys in on the super-slick Liam
Hennessy, who is essentially deputy minister for keeping a lid on the hotheads.
There was a time when he was the one planting the bombs, but now he is “reformed.”
Hennessy is playing a dangerous game, trying to extract more concessions from
the British in exchange for intel on the terrorists. Naturally, he patronizes
and grossly underestimates Quan, until the grieving father starts leaving
warning bombs of his own. He also seems to be more than Hennessy’s former IRA
thugs can handle, but just barely.
Chan
is not a superman in The Foreigner.
Frankly, he acts his age and maybe a little extra, taking some beatings nearly
as bad as those in the bizarrely under-appreciated Police Story: Lockdown. It is somewhat surprising how much screen
time he concedes to the rest of the cast, but this still might be his best
straight-up dramatic performance. Still, the fights and stunt work is
first-rate, so fans will not be disappointed on that score.
Just
as the dour, angsty Chan will be new for most fans, the sleazy, venal, self-pitying
Hennessey is a Pierce Brosnan we haven’t seen before either. He is such an
unpleasant character, we quite enjoy watching him take flak from all sides.
Orla Brady makes a spectacularly evil Lady Macbeth type as Hennessy’s slightly
disappointed wife Mary, while Ray Fearon’s Bromley swaggers with authority.
Screenwriter
David Marconi also deserves tremendous credit for updating Stephen Leather’s Troubles-set
novel to the post-Good Friday era. Frighteningly, the hidden IRA weapons caches
that are frequently mentioned are very real. Marconi and Campbell also clearly
establish the factional rivalries and alliances within the IRA and its subsidiaries
that they suggest still persist to this day. Sure, this is an action thriller,
but it leaves viewers convinced the current peace remains perilously fragile.
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