When Martin Campbell who helmed the debut movies of the two Bonds of our generation -well okay relax millennial- my generation, teamed up with one of those Bond actors and the “pint sized dynamo” from Hong Kong, I knew I wouldn’t be in for a disappointment.Though its an unlikely combination of talents and one thats even more unlikely to happen again, the timing of the release of this film based on a novel over two decades old, one has to say couldn’t have been more coincidental with the theme it dealt with, considering the mindless violence that was unleashed on unsuspecting, innocent people purportedly by a crazed individual a few days apart.The Las Vegas shooting reminded us that terror doesn’t have a religion or a cause to drive its rage.A deranged mind is all it takes, all the time.
The true intent of terror is the fear that it creates in the mind of the individual who leaves his home and steps out into the streets.In these times of crowd sourced mass violence you can’t but help worry about the safety of your loved ones every time they are out in a public place.This fear and helplessness is the central theme that the makers have explored in The Foreigner.Jackie Chan plays an ex-special forces man who takes on the system in ways he knows best when he seeks the answers behind a bombing that kills his daughter.Pierce Brosnan is at the wrong end of Jackie’s fist as the militant turned politician, who reminds you of the faces you have seen on the news couple of decades back in the wake of the IRA ceasefire which involved the Sinn Fein and the British government apart from other organizations in the region.
Jackie Chan gets to emote apart from doing what he does best, kicking ass that is.Brosnan is at home in his role as the politically driven ex-IRA man.The movie is as much about politics as its about action and it feeds on the latent anger in the viewer who sees himself in the actions of Jackie Chan’s character.Martin Campbell has made a film that might find more acceptance in the east not just because it has one of the biggest stars from Asia rather because of the unsavory past of homegrown terror and violence in one of the leading nations of the West, it reminds the audiences there of
gopakumarpurushothaman 