Steven Seagal has starred in some great action flicks down the years but unfortunately this ain't one of em. As other hacks have pointed out on this page, the plot is messy and incoherent and it's difficult most of the time to even work out who are supposed to be the `good guys' and who are supposed to be the `bad guys'. It borrows a major plot element from the movie `Ronin' from a few years back, namely a mysterious package that various mysterious factions are desperate to get their hands on and will walk over corpses in order to do so, and like that movie this one also has a European setting. The plot of `Ronin' was also a bit convoluted and confusing and required the viewer to pay close attention to what was going on. But the `The Foreigner' is far worse. It tries too hard to be intriguing and mysterious and in the process ends up as a complete mess. And then we come to Mr. Seagal himself. Okay, he's the on dark side of 50 now, but that in itself isn't necessarily a barrier to being able to carry off a tough-guy action role. For example, Clint Eastwood was older than Seagal is now when he starred as the hard-as-nails Marine gunnery sergeant in `Heartbreak Ridge' in the mid-1980s, but he carried off that role superbly and convincingly because he was lean, mean and obviously very fit. Seagal on the other hand has quite clearly gone to seed, allowing himself to balloon (as others have also pointed out here) to almost Brando-esque proportions and quite frankly looked laughable here. And then there's that annoying, headache-inducing `fast-motion, slow-motion' camerawork that unfortunately seems to be all the rage with movie-makers right now. Hopefully it's a trend will soon die out (that movie `The Matrix' has got a lot to answer for). In a nutshell sub-standard and very typical `straight-to-video' fare and really only recommended for die-hard Seagal enthusiasts. 3 out of 10 (and I'm being generous).
