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List Price: $14.94 | | Label: Sony Pictures
Salesrank: 49188
Released: January 28, 2003 |
| Our Price: $4.89 |
| Used Price: $1.52 |
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MPAA Rating: R (Restricted)
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
A mercenary is hired to deliver a package from France to Germany but dangerous people are working to thwart him.
Genre: Feature Film-Action/Adventure
Rating: R
Release Date: 3-FEB-2004
Media Type: DVD
Description of The Foreigner:
There must be an audience for Steven Seagal movies, but it's hard to imagine who would actually want to watch a movie like The Foreigner. Seagal, bloated and puffy-faced, plays a super-professional operative of some kind, who on this occasion is supposed to deliver a package from someone (it doesn't matter who) to a super-rich industrialist. The industrialist's beautiful blond wife tries to intercept it, Seagal prevents this, then decides to help her out, and lots and lots of people get killed in impractical and implausible ways. Almost every scene is so full of "mysterious" dialogue as to be incomprehensible. The Foreigner tries to create a veil of cool action attitude to disguise the lack of cool and the lack of action. Seagal mumbles. Seagal frowns. No one shoots Seagal, despite numerous opportunities to do so and no reason not to. Why was this movie made? --Bret Fetzer
The Foreigner Reviews:
inexplicable trans-european shoot `em up . . . 
2009-08-24 - The Foreigner (2003) is a convoluted, confusing, and ultra-violent thriller that traverses across Europe leaving a trail of death and destruction. Steven Segal is Jonathan Cold, a former deep cover agent now working freelance, who is hired to make a routine delivery of a package, and is determined to complete the job no matter how complicated it becomes.
Director Michael Oblowitz's film, features some quirky hit men, who kill with little or no provocation. Max Ryan is Dunois, an extremely irritating fellow, who is like a vile rash that just won't go away. Mr. Mimms (Sherman Agustus) is a soft spoken professional killer, who is also quick to pull the trigger. Identified only as Richard (Deobia Oparei) is a very self-confident heavy, who speaks in almost poetic verse. His stay while amusing, is sadly short-lived. Seagal does his usual thing, with his fighting skills accented and augmented by quick cut edits, and slow motion and fast motion techniques. With so many engaged in murderous mayhem, Seagal has ample competition.
The key figure in the maelstrom is Meredith Van Aken (Anna-Louise Plowman), who's strained relationship with her husband Jerome, prompts her to turn to Cold for help. Those in Van Aken's employ are like lambs to be slaughtered, but finally when everyone is dead, and there are no more left to kill, the lady makes her exit with best wishes to one who's services are no longer required. There apparently was a reason for it all, but the roundabout route, and copious violence tends to leave the senses numb. Seagal would return as Jonathan Cold in Black Dawn (2005).
"Naivity is not what I accuse you of ... however, arrogance does come to mind"
2008-10-26 - For the uninformed viewer, you really need to look no further than "The Foreigner" when it comes to Steven Seagal's direct-to-video career: Seagal's stepping-stone into the lower rungs of cinema does a very good job at encompassing all of the faults that would be prevalent throughout classics like Out for a Kill, Submerged, and Attack Force, effectively setting the poor standard to which the aikido master more or less seems to hold himself to. Even though it came off the heels of the semi-coherent Half Past Dead, only the most enduring fan of Seagal will find this debacle accessible.
In short, without the ridiculous sub-plots, the story is about Jonathan Cold (Seagal), a freelance agent hired to deliver a mysterious package from France to Germany. When he's targeted by assassins looking to intercept the parcel, he's forcibly thrown into a backstory political corruption, treachery, and murder.
The plot is one of the film's initial falling points: convoluted and unengaging to the point that few viewers will bother to catch the names of the main characters, it does a poor job of trying to appear smart and high-tech when all it is is the ill-conceived second attempt of writer Darren Campbell to craft a movie.
The cast is probably the film's best asset: though you'll be hard-pressed to figure out why anybody is doing what they're doing, Max Ryan (Death Race (Unrated Edition)), Anna-Louise Plowman ("The Adulterer"), Harry Van Gorkum (Dragonheart - A New Beginning), Jeffrey Pierce ("Charlie Jade"), and Sherman Augustus ("The Young and the Restless") do their best to work around Seagal in his theatrical doldrum, and manage to create a fairly decent collection of characters.
The rest of the movie, however, goes downhill: Seagal had packed on the weight and wrinkles so much since "Half Past Dead" that he looks like a completely different person. His action has suffered as well: he still does more of his own fighting than you ought to expect in the future, but what's there is pretty uninspired, and the few times you do his stunt double are rather obvious. Add to that a couple of ho-hum shootouts and you've got yourself living proof that our hero is no longer what he used to be...and that's before you realize that about a quarter of his lines are being dubbed by another actor.
Alas, the film's production itself is in trouble. Poor cinematography and the occasional silly line in the script ("You know, you kind of look like Ray Charles") are only the tip of the iceberg, as senseless computer graphics and editing techniques try to spice up the otherwise mundane action and a handful of poorly-incorporated flashbacks only make the film more confusing. It's all just one big mess.
Though the movie gradually got more interesting in its last twenty-five minutes, nothing short of seeing Seagal return to form could have saved it, and that never happens. There are very few reasons to watch this movie - only a diehard Seagal fan or somebody wanting to find out whatever happened to the big man should have any interest in giving it a watch. Luckily, it's not a complete sum-up of Seagal's post-superstar career: if you're interested in some of his more decent DTV offerings, check out Belly of the Beast, Urban Justice, or Pistol Whipped, but leave this one at the box office.
not quite Seagal's worst but close...
2008-08-27 - I've watched almost every Seagal film from Above the Law to his most recent direct-to-DVD film. The foreigner is one of three that I somehow missed along the way. The non-Seagal fan should immediately pass on this one. The plot is extremely simple. Seagal plays someone who is supposed to deliver a package. Between pick up and delivery then viewer is left wondering what the hell is this all about. The actions scenes are marginal at best. The fight scenes were OK but the producers messed them up by using the super slow motion and then speed up technique coupled with some awful music. I bumped this film up a star because it is slightly better than Seagal's worst films. He has produced some films in which the sound quality and/or his mumbling of lines is so bad that you have no clue as to what is being said. The filming of the scenes in the Foreigner was decent. I suppose the film somewhat kept my attention as it was filmed in Warsaw, so I was constantly looking for familiar landmarks. In any case true Seagal fans will probably suck it up and try to watch this one. Casual fans should do themselves a favor and skip to some of the more recent Seagal direct-to-DVDs which have gotten somewhat better.
Good, off-style B movie 
2008-02-29 - What can I say? This is one of those films that just has the right vibe and I really like it a lot. I can easily see why it's not a hit with the A film critics, but appreciation of B films is an art in and of itself.
Sometimes film makers try for an A film, and end up with a B. Some of those times it's a good B, sometimes a bad B. Other times film makers try for a B film, and it ends up bad or good, and occasionally makes it into the A ranks.
This is just a solid, fun B, with kind of a smooth flow to it. The acting is actually good, and the story, once you figure it all out, is rather interesting, but not great.
As with any action film, some things are exaggerated beyond belief, such as the small package bomb Cold uses at the train station which somehow manages to blow fireballs of equal size out of the entire front length of the station, and is something he wouldn't do anyway with that character, as he is portrayed as a man of ethics, in spite of his career choice.
So, it's fun, a little choppy, a little lacking, decent acting; another Seagal film that did not achieve its' full potential.
Don't do it! 
2006-02-16 - This is not the Seagal of the early nineties. Something has happened to him and it's not good. He's gained weight, does not move like before, and is hard to understand. The technical process is terrible. I will never buy another Seagal (I have 14 of the old ones) again and I think Amazon should seriously consider taking this off their site.
