"The Foreigner" review

The Foreigner (2003)

Directed by Michael Oblowitz
Writing credits Darren O. Campbell

Steven Seagal.... Jonathan Cold
Max Ryan.... Dunoir
Harry Van Gorkum.... Jerome Van Aiken
Jeffrey Pierce.... Sean Cold

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.

SCORE: LANDFILL