For nearly a decade, Liam Neeson has dominated the market on older actors still kicking ass onscreen. Others have tried, including Sean Penn (The Gunman) and John Travolta (From Paris with Love), but none have had near the success.
But now, Jackie Chan – excuse me, Academy Award winner Jackie Chan – will attempt to take it on, and it looks like he'll have a better go of it. Even if he may not be as spry as the jaw-dropping acrobat who gave us The Legend of Drunken Master 2 and Police Story, he's still able to throw down.
Chan plays Quan, who leaps into action to hunt down the terrorists who killed his daughter (and many others) in a bombing. Pierce Brosnan plays the shady politician who refuses to help Quan in his quest for vengeance.
Directed by Martin Campbell, who made two of the best recent James Bond movies (GoldenEye and Casino Royale), The Foreigner opens on October 13.
About Kip Mooney
Like many film critics born during and after the 1980s, my hero is Roger Ebert. The man was already the best critic in the nation when he won the Pulitzer in 1975, but his indomitable spirit during and after his recent battle with cancer keeps me coming back to read not only his reviews but his insightful commentary on the everyday. But enough about a guy you know a lot about.
I knew I was going to be a film critic—some would say a snob—in middle school, when I had to voraciously defend my position that The Royal Tenenbaums was only a million times better than Adam Sandler’s remake of Mr. Deeds. From then on, I would seek out Wes Anderson’s films and avoid Sandler’s like the plague.
Still, I like to think of myself as a populist, and I’ll be just as likely to see the next superhero movie as the next Sundance sensation. The thing I most deplore in a movie is laziness. I’d much rather see movies with big ambitions try and fail than movies with no ambitions succeed at simply existing. I’m also a big advocate of fun-bad movies like The Room and most of Nicolas Cage’s work.
In the past, I’ve written for The Dallas Morning News and the North Texas Daily, which I edited for a semester. I also contributed to Dallas-based Pegasus News, which in the circle of life, is now part of The Dallas Morning News, where I got my big break in 2007. Eventually, I’d love to write and talk about film full-time, but until that’s a viable career option, I work as an auditor for Wells Fargo.
I hope to one day meet my hero, go to the Toronto International Film Festival, and compete on Jeopardy. Until then, I’m excited to share my love of film with you.
