The Foreigner | | Cast : | Steven Seagal, Harry Van Gorkum | | Director : | Michael Oblowitz | | Studio : | Columbia Tristar Hom | | Format : | Color, Closed-captioned, Widescreen | | Released Date : | January 01, 2003 | | DVD Released Date : | January 28, 2003 | | Language : | English (Dubbed), English (Subtitled), Portuguese (Subtitled), English (Original Language), Thai (Subtitled), Chinese (Subtitled), Korean (Subtitled), Spanish (Subtitled) | | Audience Rating : | R (Restricted) | | | BUY THIS DVD FROM AMAZON |
Customer Reviews
| Rating |  | | Date | December 20, 2004 | | Summary | What a load of rubbish | Content
 | Hi my name is Lloyd Duff and I think this film needs to be thrown off a very high cliff. I like Steven Seagal and I am aware that he is in his 50's and cant do his karate like he used to. The story is he is suposed to deliver a package from Poland to go knows where for a rich dude. Most of the film is about his parnter going around pointlessy shooting people who have nothing to do with the movie. Was he mental? Why shoot the old porsche guy at berlin airport? yet help an old womon at the farm? Was he jeaulous of him? of his charming good looks? He could have just Drove away leaving the guy swearing in german and throwing his turino flatcap to to ground and screaming out "hoodlum" WHY MURDER HIM? He could have had money in his briefcase |
| Rating | | | Date | November 19, 2004 | | Summary | See it for mindless action and mindless filmmaking | Content
| While Steven Seagal looks better in this film than he does in his later ones ("Out of Reach" made me dub him "the kung-fu Meatloaf") his statuesque features cannot save this movie. Neither can his amazing ability to keep every facial feature above his lower lip stiff. And though his adult diapers and ensure cannot stop the fact that he's not much of an action star any more, Steven has the help of horrible editing and directing to make it look like he's beating a guy up. Yet even this Kurosawa-like filmmaking cannot save this movie. In the end, all you get is a bad action movie.
One problem is that this movie makes it look like Europe is the size of a small village. One minute we're in Warsaw, then Germany, then suddenly everyone's British, then we're in Poland again, then Germany, then Norway, then Atlantis...where the heck are we? Were there wormholes that the characters used?
While plotholes abound and storyline is almost nonexistant, the writers have filled in the gaps with explosions and dead bodies. And lots of the latter. I counted three destroyed buildings, but lost count on the bodies. I do know, however, that the Department of Water Management funded this movie, because many characters die falling into a river or stream that happens to be nearby. This is true in the (second) attack Seagal makes on the industrial tycoon's headquarters. Almost every villain shot happens to fall backward, toppling into water. Perhaps it was to drown them, because Seagal seemed to like shooting the guards in the shoulders (unless Europeans have a vital organ in the shoulder I don't know about). The important thing about these deaths is that they give us emotions because we CARE about the characters! Like the black guy who dies since he's the black guy, or the spare black guy that dies because...well, he's the black guy.
There is one character I especially liked, the hitman that turns on Seagal. He had an actual name, but eventually my roommate and I dubbed him "Killer McDeath" because he kills everyone he comes across. I also couldn't help but noticed he killed off all the hot girls in the movie too: the cute maid at the mansion (shot), the young secretary at a business (shot), and the beautiful receptionist at the hotel (stabbed with a banana - oh no wait, he shot her). It got to the point where any time a cute girl appeared my roommate and I would say, "Uh oh, she's not gonna last long." I also have to say he was a tough guy - he's shot, blown out a window, shot again, hit by shrapnel, cut on the face, and smokes, but our friend Killer McDeath just shakes it off and keeps on tickin'. The sad thing is that in the end Steven Seagal kills him by a simple [...]-slap of doom. Surely the great Killer McDeath deserved a more suitable demise! Ah well, Killer McDeath will live on forever in "The Foreigner 2: Back to America." |
| Rating | | | Date | October 04, 2004 | | Summary | Oh the humanity! | Content
| If you, like me, ever wonder what happened to Steven Seagal, you need to run right out and pick up "The Foreigner." In the late 1980s and early 1990's, it looked as though Seagal would join the ranks of Hollywood's top action stars. You would hear his name in the same sentence with Arnie and Stallone, no small feat indeed. And to a large degree, Seagal's films deserved the comparison. "Under Siege" was a winner, as were "Hard to Kill" and "Above the Law." The actor's greatest appeal isn't hard to fathom; Seagal embraced a brutal form of martial arts that, at least onscreen, allowed him to slap down thugs, break bones, and wreak massive havoc without batting an eye. Literally, Seagal would stand in place and put down one goon after the other with an ease that looked not only natural but also realistic. I still enjoy watching that pool room scene where Seagal's character used pool cues, billiard balls, and whatever else he could lay his hands on to put out the trash. Alas, how the mighty have fallen. The early 1990s may as well be ancient history as far as Steven Seagal is concerned. Although he's still capable of making a few moderately entertaining films, far too often we're seeing movies like "The Foreigner" and "Ticker."
Steven Seagal is Jonathan Cold, aka "The Foreigner," which we learn toward the end of the film is a highly trained government operative who works overseas under deep cover. During the film we discover he's now working for some sleazy Polish goon who wants him to carry a package to a client somewhere in Europe as his final assignment. First, he has to pick up the package from a couple of Russians out in the countryside with his boss's other hired hand, the nefarious Dunois (Max Ryan). Predictably, the two engage in macho banter on the car ride out to the cottage, which allows us to learn that Dunois is a rather shady character, before the two narrowly survive a huge gun battle and fire at the house. Cold isn't happy about dealing with such dire circumstances, but he's a professional and won't give up on fulfilling his mission. Perhaps he should have since that would have saved the audience from enduring the rest of this amateurish piece of dreck. Anyway, Seagal heads off to do what he does best, unaware that his old boss from the CIA, Jared Olyphant (Gary Raymond), knows all about the box and wants what is in it. At least I think Olyphant is Cold's former employer; the movie's so convoluted that it's hard to keep track of the various characters.
Before you can hit stop on your remote, all sorts of unpleasant people are gunning for our hero. Cold discovers that the package contains references to an air disaster in the 1980s, and also learns that wealthy industrialist Jerome Van Aken (Harry Van Gorkum) has something to do with the whole thing. While Cold scopes out the Van Aken estate, Dunois doggedly tracks him with the sort of persistence I wish I had as I tried to get through this movie. There's also a black assassin named Mims, hired by Jared Olyphant, gunning for the box. Cold eventually figures out, with a little help from Jerome's wife Meredith (Anne-Louise Plowman), that there's a huge conspiracy linking the information in the box with a corporate plot to create...well, I won't spoil it for you, but I ought to if it will prevent people from watching the film. Before we learn the shocking revelations that blow the evildoers' plans wide open, the movie treats us to several poorly edited action sequences that find Seagal's character infiltrating the Van Aken estate in order to blow away several beefy Slavic guards. He does it again later with Dunois, entering the compound by the SAME route he went in before. You would think the crack security team in charge of a billionaire's private residence would figure out a way to shore up the cracks, but you would be wrong.
Absolutely nothing works in "The Foreigner" beyond a few exceptionally bloody squibs. Director Michael Oblowitz, who should now personify that age-old mantra "you'll never work in this town again," simply doesn't know how to make a coherent movie. In the place of intriguing, deeply developed characters and original action scenes, he falls into the deadly trap of blaring techno music, cool dialogue that is neither cool nor makes sense, and continuity holes you could sail a battleship through. Even worse, the film relies way to heavily on speeding up or slowing down the speed of the film. I can understand using slow motion to show a body cartwheeling from a shotgun blast, but why do we need to watch Seagal's character sit down in a chair in slo-mo? It's one of those examples of a movie elevating style over substance. Problem is we've seen so many movies overuse these techniques that we recognize when it's poorly used. By far the most ridiculous aspect of the movie has to be how many times Dunois bites the bullet only to bounce back up for another round. I could go on and on.
Did I hear you ask about extras? A bunch of trailers for other action films, including "XXX," "I Spy," "Half Past Dead," "The Foreigner," and "The One." They probably shouldn't have included some of these trailers on the disc, though. I kept thinking how much I would rather watch a few of these other films than this one, even the other Seagal low budget actioners. Actually, I also recently watched two other Steven Seagal films, "Exit Wounds" and "Belly of the Beast," and both were much better than "The Foreigner" Perhaps this movie is an anomaly. I certainly hope so for Seagal's sake as even diehard fans will want to skip this clunker.
|
| Rating | | | Date | March 06, 2004 | | Summary | What Did I Just Watch?! | Content
| THE FOREIGNER is a film telling the story of...uh...um...that is to say the basic plot of THE FOREIGNER involves...um...oh, forget it, I give up! This movie makes no sense at all! It's one of Seagal's all time worst. He super sleepwalks through this one. In THE GODFATHER Marlon Brando stuffed his cheeks with cotton to make his jaw line appear a little different and his voice sound a little rougher. It looks as though Seagal tried the same aproach for THE FOREIGNER, but took it a couple steps too far and shoved entire cones of cotton candy into his mouth. He mumbles horrendously throughout the entire picture making most of his dialogue incomprehensible. This is extremely unfortunate as there's A LOT of the usual Seagal direct-to-video post-production voice-over-style acting in this one with Seagal obviously recording most of his monotonous monologue and
dialogue later on from the comfortable chairs of a sound booth. For those interested in watching Seagal movies solely for the fights, this is also not the movie for you. He has only one big showdown here which doesn't last long and which can best be described as Steven Seagal plays patt-a-cake below the standards of physical coordination set by toddlers who practice the game. Stay away unless you're a true diehard fan and simply MUST see everything Seagal does. For others, this is the pits! |
| Rating | | | Date | January 24, 2004 | | Summary | Typical but not horrible | Content
| Well i will say this movie stunk but i won't say it was all that horrible,much better than the rediculous Out for a Kill,uhh didnt we already have OUT for justice?Anyhow this is the typical package delivery,look out bad guy's,big conspiracy movie.Yes is pretty bad but it could have been a lot better,spice up the plot and instead of Steven using ALL gun's in this movie,let him use his much skilled martial arts talent.This is backwards,take all the fighting from Out for a Kill and put it here and it would be so much better.Oh well can't win them all,and by the way give up the cheesy new age music,and slow motion reverse fighting shots,let the man just fight for god sakes. |
|
