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The Foreigner | 2017 | R | - 5.7.6
An aging businessman (Jackie Chan) loses his teenage daughter (Charlie Murphy) in a London car bombing that's suspected of being the work of the IRA. When an Irish official refuses to help him find her murderer, the grieving father terrorizes him until he can provide the names of possible killers. Also with Pierce Brosnan, Simon Kunz and Katie Leung. Directed by Martin Campbell. Several lines of dialogue are in Chinese with English subtitles. Many characters speak with thick Irish accents. [1:54]
SEX/NUDITY 5 - We see the sweaty faces, necks, and bare shoulders of a man and a woman as they gasp and fall side by side on a bed in close-up (sex is implied); he leans off-screen and the camera shows him wearing a waist to ankle towel (we see his bare chest and abdomen) and the woman is shown wearing a long shirt (we see her bare legs to the top of the thighs) and the man lies on top of the woman on the bed again and kisses her as the scene ends (sex is again implied). A younger man enters a woman's room and removes his shirt (he is the nephew of the woman's husband); they kiss passionately until a phone call interrupts them and he leaves (we hear later that they were together for two hours and sex is implied).
► A woman kisses a man and hugs him; he smiles and is tearful. A married man and a single woman lie in bed side by side (we see their bare shoulders and arms, along with his chest).
► A few scenes include a woman wearing a scoop neck nightgown that reveals cleavage. A few men are shirtless in different scenes and we see bare chests, backs, arms, and shoulders.
VIOLENCE/GORE 7 - A parked car explodes, filling the screen with smoke and tall flames as pieces of the car are thrown in all directions and a shop and a bank are obliterated and we see a man's face in close-up with many shards of glass in his bloody face as he stumbles, falls and we see him hugging his dead teen daughter, her face charred and filled with bloody cuts and glass shards; the camera later pans across a heap of bodies with many bloody faces, hands, and legs (one dead man's chest looks like raw hamburger and another man's full leg looks the same) and we hear that 12 people died.
► A double-decker bus explodes, filling the screen with tall flames and some smoke as the roof is blown off and debris is thrown in all directions; we see a man lying beside an overturned motorcycle but see no blood and we hear that 16 people died. A man knocks out two riflemen at night and hog ties them, then plants explosives in a barn and leaves, watching the barn explode into flames (we hear that the two tied-up men died).
► Two men argue loudly and one man points a handgun at the other, seated man, and then shoots him in the knee twice and hits his face with the pistol, drawing a thick cut and dripping blood as the victim screams three times; the man with the gun points it between the victim's eyes and the camera cuts to outside the house, where we hear a muffled gunshot (we later see the victim lying face down in a pool of blood) and the first man tells a third man to bury the body as the scene ends. An injured woman is shown lying on the floor face up as a police officer shoots her three times with an automatic rifle and she dies. A woman answers her door and a man there shoots her between the eyes with a silenced handgun (we see a red dot on her forehead and she falls backwards to the floor).
► A man has a flashback that includes a large boat filled with families escaping a war zone while enemies attack with automatic rifles and kill screaming men, women and children; we see a woman and her young daughter shot (they fall into the water and we later hear that a man lost his wife and daughter in that event and that they were both raped before dying.
► A man enters an apartment where three other men search his bag and find a rifle, the first man grabs it and fires around the room as the other three men shoot at him and one uses a knife until two men are shot and killed and another man accidentally shoots a woman in the shoulder (we see blood flow) and the third man is shot and killed; a SWAT team blows a hole in the ceiling and they drop down into the scene where the injured woman spits bloody saliva into an officer's face and he drags her into another room, punches her face, and pinches a bullet wound on her bloody shoulder, making her scream, then hits her in the face with a pistol, drawing some blood and kicks her; the officer pulls down her blouse a bit as another officer holds up two electrode sensors for either a lie detector device or a shock-giving device.
► A man hangs two bottles full of gasoline by a string in a men's washroom and sets up a matchbook and lit cigarette to act as a fuse; he leaves and the room explodes in massive fire balls; a woman in a nearby office is thrown to the floor, uninjured, but her office is covered in dust while a man in another office shouts into a telephone (we see the washroom full of dust, dirt, and debris as police inspect it).
► Three police officers charge through an airport, take a laptop from a man, and shout at people to clear the way as they run to the end of the terminal (people scream and run) and an officer tosses the laptop into an airplane boarding bridge where there is no plane and it explodes into the camera with smoke and flames as windows shatter (no one is shown to be harmed).
► A man mixes nitroglycerin and weed killer for an explosive in his second-floor apartment where two gunmen break down his door while two other gunmen stand below his bedroom window; the first man climbs into a small attic door and breaks a hole in the roof, while a gunman chases him and they fistfight and the gunman is thrown out of the attic and onto the floor; the first man slides down a downspout and into a lower window where he fights three gunmen using kicks, punches and throws (one man is thrown off-screen and another man is thrown into a wall) and the first man slides down a flight of steps on his back, gets up and fights another man, both kicking and jumping back and forth across landings and short staircases until the first man jumps through a window, shattering the glass and runs away. Four gunmen chase a man through the woods, wounding him once in the shoulder; one gunman trips over a wire and another gunman steps on tall metal spikes, screaming as the chased man knocks out a man with a pole and another man with several knee kicks to the head and stomach while a third man knocks him down, but he escapes by rolling down a hill.
► A man surprises another man and they fight with a knife, a tree limb, punches and kicks; the first man falls, landing with his chin barely against the point of a sharpened length of branch in the other man's hand and the camera cuts to the first man tied up (he is later released).
► A man finds his dog on a floor, unmoving and a man points a gun at the first man; the gunman says the dog is only asleep and the two men argue, the gunman hits the other man in the face with the gun, and then leaves as the other man panics and shakes (his face is bruised). A man is shown in an official's apartment, points a gun at him, and forces him to send a photo of himself meeting with a female terrorist to the British government.
► A man sees smoke clouds down his long driveway and sends men out to check it; they discover a car on its side and pull an injured, unconscious man out (we see that his leg is entirely chewed up and bloody) and carry him to a car heading for the hospital. Two men grab a third man in an office building and then let him go.
► A man heats his hunting knife on a fire and in a silent scene, cauterizes a long wound on his shoulder, grimacing wildly and collapsing. A man's face is shown covered in short red cuts and blood flowing from under his long sleeve onto his hand. A man finds blood on leaves in a forest.
► A man builds a bomb and a woman plants it inside a laptop computer. A man frightens another man by rigging up wires from the second man's car hood to the gas cap; the driver's associate tells him not to turn the key and finds that the wires are not connected to anything.
► A man and his wife argue and he shouts at her. A man shouts at each of two other men in arguments. A man states that he lost several relatives in "The Troubles" in Ireland. We see a billboard commemorating "Bloody Sunday." A man stands in his deceased daughter's bedroom, tearful. A man sits in front of photos of his deceased wife and two children killed in a war. A man burns a photo and a news clipping about the war.
► A man gargles and spits green liquid into a sink.
LANGUAGE 6 - About 17 F-words and its derivatives, 2 sexual references, 3 scatological terms, 2 anatomical terms, 9 mild obscenities, name-calling (bastard, hotheads, upstart, cold blooded, washed up, blind, dumb, disgusting, old man, ancient man, Chinaman, pig, slag), 19 religious exclamations (Christ Almighty Christ, My God, For God's Sake, By God, Thank God, Jesus, Jesus Christ, How In The Name Of God).
SUBSTANCE USE - A man mentions that the IRA has several kilos of an unnamed drug. A man drinks whisky in his office and at home several times, a man pours whisky for another man who drinks (three times), a man drinks from a whisky bottle twice, a man and a woman drink short glasses of whisky in a café, a woman orders a single malt whisky and drinks it all at once in a bar and adding more whisky from a friend's glass to her own, three men in an apartment sit in front of glasses of beer (they do not drink), and a woman drinks a bottle of beer. A man smokes a cigarette in a building, a man uses a lit cigarette as a bomb fuse (please see the Violence/Gore category for more details), and a soldering tool sends up smoke like a cigarette.
DISCUSSION TOPICS - Terrorism, war, murder, death, loss, grief, government cover ups, politics, money, power, betrayal, the IRA, The Troubles, determination, resourcefulness, vigilantes, planning, family, friendship, justice.
MESSAGE - Determined individuals and governments can gain justice against terrorists.
CAVEATS
Be aware that while we do our best to avoid spoilers it is impossible to disguise all details and some may reveal crucial plot elements.
We've gone through several editorial changes since we started covering films in 1992 and older reviews are not as complete & accurate as recent ones; we plan to revisit and correct older reviews as resources and time permits.
Our ratings and reviews are based on the theatrically-released versions of films; on video there are often Unrated, Special, Director's Cut or Extended versions, (usually accurately labelled but sometimes mislabeled) released that contain additional content, which we did not review.
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