The Foreigner (Not The Good One)

• Directed by Michael Oblowitz
• January 22, 2003

A freelance secret agent must transport a package for a mysterious employer landing him in a web of betrayal and deceit. Because nothing says secret agent like a tall and overweight man with a spray tan and ponytail.

One thing I have come to realize (or just assume based on the quality of the projects) Seagal picks a cool (to him) sounding title that has very little if anything to do with the actual film. The Foreigner is a good sounding title (it worked for that Jackie Chan/Pierce Brosnan movie) but only connects kinda because Seagal is the titular foreigner in all this since the movie was shot in scenic Warsaw, Poland to save money.

I am also convinced Steven Seagal wears his personal wardrobe and perhaps even gets others to do the same in his movies. It is certainly a cost saving tactic on these cheap movies. If you watch enough of his films the same jackets and pants and shirts start showing up in particular eras of his weight. It certainly implies Steven Seagal is living out a fantasy rather than playing a part. Nice work if you don’t get it but certainly does nothing for the quality of films. Like here his jacket appeared in multiple movies around this time that I’ve seen.

Seagal plays Jon Cold (feel free to laugh) who was a former deep cover agent that decided to put out a shingle and go into business for himself. Basically he delivers packages. Goes from secret agent to delivery boy. At the start Jon comes all way from Paris to Bumfuck Wherever to get a package to take it wherever. Remember that. He goes to a farmhouse to pick up the package and is suspicious because the package is already there. Huh? His whole goal was to pick up the package so I’m not sure where the suspicion comes from.

Deobia Oparei as The Stranger brings his A Game to a Z Level production and is the highlight of the movie. Seagal can’t or won’t act and everybody else has resigned themselves to participating in this particular atrocity but Oparei refuses to phone it in. In a better production (which Oparei has participated in since) he could have really shined. The Stranger is the type of baddie that makes this kind of thriller fun and should have been the person Cold fought against.

Anna-Louise Plowman as femme fatale Meredith Van Aken gives a good effort, but Steven Seagal doesn’t even try. No great thespian but I know he can do better than what he does here. He doesn’t even care. Well at least less so than in his other projects. Cold is framed as a conspiracy theorist, but it is just over foreshadowing on every plot development that comes in the next scene. Not that this is a sophisticated affair. Much like all of his movies The Foreigner has all the complexity of a Bluey episode but lacks their level of suspense.

This moves from one moment to the next with all the intelligence of a short story written by a five-year-old. One step in the plot barely connects to the other. And very little actually matters that gets brought up. Besides the slo-mo to slow things up Jon gets a younger brother who does not do too much and some inconsequential shady characters who appear about as genuinely dangerous as Quark from DS9.

A lot of footage is slowed up marginally to exceedingly. While such instances used sparingly can accentuate the drama of any film the excessive use of it in The Foreigner makes one feel as if they are simply stretching out the movie. This is over 90 minutes and I think keeping things moving at a normal speed would’ve probably kept it at the minimum slightly under 90 minutes. Eighty Maybe?

There are moments when our very stealthy agent Jon Cold gets in places not by sneaking in and or finding a way around security but by simply hopping over a very low fence. Nobody guarding this place thinks to at the minimum raise the fence up higher or post security at this very vulnerable spot? It makes for his expanding butt to engage in some action but defies plausibility.

The Foreigner is typical Steven Seagal direct to video. Short on intelligence as well as interesting action. It’s supposed to be a thriller, but you won’t be thrilled or held in suspense.