The Foreigner (2003) Reviews

• As bad as any movie I've seen in the past year.

  Scoopy2003-01-27

  The Foreigner is a straight-to-video Steven Seagal film that was originally intended to be released as a theatrical feature in March, 2003, an intention which was reportedly reversed when Seagal's prior film (Half Past Dead) tanked at the box office. According to some reports, the film had a lavish $20 million budget, including location shoots in Warsaw and Paris, and was completed as part of the studio's obligation to a two-picture deal which was negotiated after the relative success of Exit Wounds seemed to indicate that Seagal still had a solid following. Despite the size of their investment, Sony Screen Gems probably made the right move in shelving this movie. It is nearly incomprehensible. What am I saying? It IS incomprehensible. I don't think I understood what was going on at all, except in the very broadest terms. Seagal is employed by a mysterious guy to deliver a mysterious package to another mysterious guy. Other mysterious guys try to stop him. Other highly mysterious guys try to kill the moderately mysterious guys who try to stop him. Other really, really mysterious guys do especially mysterious stuff, all of which which was in fact too mysterious for me to figure out. The intended recipient's mysterious wife tries to intercept the package before it can be delivered to her husband. Because he is a self-proclaimed "consummate professional" who has been hired to deliver the package only into the hands of the husband, Seagal at first defies the wife, then later gets involved in protecting her and her daughter from other mysterious guys with unexplained agendas, as well as from her husband. Many people have mysterious, cryptic conversations. Many people blow each other's brains out. Some guys seem to die more than once, while in other scenes gunfights end without a clear view of the result, so the audience sees somebody die, but is not sure which one of the gunslingers is headed to boot hill. Allegiances shift often, adding further mystery. Or should I say confusion? I don't know who was on whose side, or what anybody really wanted, and the resolution was as unsatisfying as the exposition. At the end of the movie, I just sat there thinking, "That's the end? What the ...?" I couldn't even figure out the credits. IMDb says that Aussie actress Kate Fischer (from "Sirens") was in this film, but I'll be damned if I know where. Either she was left on the cutting room floor or she wisely opted out of the project. She could have found some activities more beneficial to her career, like having unnecessary surgery, ripping those pesky insert cards out of magazines, or taking some community college courses in animal husbandry. Seagal used to be a pretty fair hand-to-hand combatant, but the action scenes didn't manage to redeem this film at all. Seagal is in his 50's now and is a very large man, so he is reduced to a mimimal level of physical exertion and even during that he is contained in a knee-length coat to hide his inchoate Brandoesque girth. He might even get a little winded removing the wrappers from candy bars, although that's understandable if you estimate just how many of those he must have to eat to maintain his present girth. Steven Seagal seemed to be making a comeback with Exit Wounds, but if his last film was half past dead, this one must be pretty close to filling out the other half.

• The solution is...shoot!

  calleydog2004-09-09

  The movie fascinated me because of the plot, but once it got underway my fascination took a different direction. I think for the only time in my life I laughed at people getting shot. Segall's Dutch accomplice shoots everyone! He himself is shot four different times. The hotel clerk won't give out a room number? Ask her to call and see which number she dials. Then, instead of unobtrusively going to that room, shoot her! The farce is complete when Segall faces down an opponent holding a gun 20 yards away. He flings a flight recorder CD with a little C4 stuck on like gum at his assailant. We see the disk igniting in mid-air in slow motion. Does the other guy shoot? No, he just stares at a CD coming to blow him away. The CD has the extra fun effect of propelling him backwards and upwards through a conveniently placed 2nd story picture window. I must admit; I enjoyed this so much that I immediately went out to get another Segall movie to see if it is as ridiculous. I can't explain why this is entertaining, but it is! IT IS!!

• OK.....what happened here?

  sveknu2005-05-13

  When you watch a Seagal movie, you expect good action. You expect fighting, not just a lot of shooting like in this flick. And: you expect a rather simple story. OK, I can live with a more complex story even though it's a Seagal movie. But this one, this is, I don't know what to say. It's very, very confusing indeed. At the end of the movie, I had major problems figuring out what had happened. And I know I'm not the only one. The story lacks so much information and is so full of plot holes that it's nearly impossible to keep track of what's happening in the movie. There are many people in the movie, people change sides all the time, and it switches locations too often. Terrible. I just don't understand why it looks like Seagal is making a sort of sequel to this one.

• How does Steve-o still have fans, anyway?

  Roland_of_Gilead_10312004-05-29

  This movie seems somewhat promising at first, but quickly spirals into a pointless mesh of betrayal and murder. As just about everyone who's posted before me has said, this film basically follows a series of nameless, faceless people around looking for a package. In the process, roughly half of Poland's population is shot in the chest by a guy who must smoke a carton of cigarettes in the mercifully brief 90 minute running time. I don't remember the names of any of these characters or the actors who portrayed them. All I can say is that I'm sure everyone involved has seen better days. And what's up with the editing in this movie? Does the guy in charge of postproduction really think slowing down and then quickly speeding up the film is going to add anything to the experience? Was writing a coherent story out of the question? Keep in mind these are all rhetorical questions. I intend to forget this travesty before I even hit the "submit" button.

• Steven Seagal hits rock bottom

  Dr. Gore2003-04-05

  *SPOILER ALERT* *SPOILER ALERT* This movie taught me an important lesson: I should listen to the user comments. Before renting "The Foreigner", I read some of the user comment summaries on the IMDb. I didn't expect them to be too positive. I was surprised to see that they were not only negative but vehemently so. I rented it anyway while muttering that one phrase that has begun so many painful movie watching experiences: "How bad can it be?" This movie is an abomination. It is right down there with "Ticker" as the worst Seagal flick ever. I thought "Fire Down Below" was horrid when that came out. That movie was genius compared to this one. At least in "FDB" he was fighting. Seagal doesn't fight anymore! He does not and CANNOT do martial arts anymore!! This is the overriding problem with recent Seagal movies. The camera does most of the fighting for him. It will either go in slow motion or super fast speed so we can't see what in the heck he is doing. Notice how Seagal is always wearing a jacket or a long coat? This is so we don't see his current body shape. I think they'll be putting him in cold settings from now on. Get ready for Steven Seagal in "Hard to Freeze: Antarctic Ranger!" "The Foreigner" has many other problems too numerous to mention. It was an incoherent mess. Buildings were blowing up for no apparent reason, people were getting shot with silencers for some reason, the bad guy kept smoking through it all and Seagal was wheezing. I was wheezing too after this mess. Don't see this junk. It will only hurt your memories of better Seagal movies. See "Marked for Death" or "Under Siege". Those were good movies. "The Foreigner" is awful.