Jackie Chan has had a great run as a happy warrior, smiling in the face of screen peril. He changed his demeanor completely for
The Foreigner (2017), which I watched on Friday night courtesy of Netflix. He plays the dad of a teenage girl killed in an IRA terrorist strike in London. She was the only surviving member of his family, which fled Vietnam, where he was a member of special forces. Seeking justice, he visits a bureaucrat, a former IRA member who shifted to its Sinn Fein political wing. He is played by Pierce Brosnan, the best performance I've ever seen him give. His character claims to be clueless about the bombing. Chan's doesn't buy it and applies pressure through controlled explosions that damage property and inflict injury but not death on the pol's minions. This is another Army of One saga, elevated by refreshing candor. It pulls no punches and ignores political correctness. Although the themes of lingering hatred, bigotry, betrayal, the shelf life of sins and torture are not fully explored, they are there and open to interpretation, which is a lot more than can be said for most action flicks. There is a lot of visceral satisfaction in its two-hour running time. Martin Campbell directed. His career has been spotty, but he has delivered several fine films including two Bonds, one Brosnan, one Craig, and the terrific
The Mask of Zorro (1998). David Marconi adapted the screenplay from
The Chinaman, a novel by Stephen Leather. Made on a budget of $35 million, it returned $145 million worldwide, which will tempt execs to produce a sequel. I hope there isn't one. Leave well enough alone. 67,000+ users at IMDb have rated
The Foreigner, forging to a consensus of seven on a scale of ten, right on the money in my opinion. Those squeamish about brutality, profanity and prejudice should pass. Sadly, I just read an article in today's
NY Post about a violent wing of the IRA acting up after so many years of peace. So far, it seems restricted to infighting. How horrible it would be to see "the troubles" return. A generation has now lived without them. Several more would have to live in peace to diminish the hatreds that reside down deep in the old-timers and die-hards on both sides. Of course, they will never be eliminated entirely. That is not mankind's lot. Here's a pic of the two stars looking every bit their ages:
It's a good thing I didn't set up shop at my usual Sunday spot. With the skies threatening, I found a parking spot close enough to the viaduct at Avenue Z & E. 15th. As I was putting the final touches to the display, it began to pour and did so for about a half-hour, the rain accompanied by thunder. Even the scaffold at my usual nook wouldn't have helped today. Unfortunately, business wasn't good despite the shrewdness of the move. My thanks to the young man in the
It T-shirt who left a buck-and-a-half atop a copy of
Rising Star, and to the woman who bought a book in Russian. During the session I was fortunate to observe a wonderful oddity. An SUV stopped at the traffic light. The driver had an acoustic guitar in his lap, which he was fingering while he waited. That's passion.
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