Quan is defined by his age, and his monomaniacal need to get eye-for-an-eye justice since his daughter was blown up in a bank explosion by an organization calling themselves "the Authentic IRA." So Chan is heavily made-up with exaggerated crow's feet, gigundo, raccoon-like bags around his eyes, and Party Giant-quality grey streaks in his hair. He also wears a mile-long face, and isn't as energetic or graceful as he has been in superior recent films like "Chinese Zodiac" or "Railroad Tigers." Chan also tends to vanish for long stretches at a time while a bunch of British and Irish diplomats, policemen, and terrorists talk, debrief, and generally drown viewers in a convoluted story of political intrigue. Imagine all the worst parts of a Robert Ludlum novel—overlong expository dialogue, monotonous and all-too-brief action scenes, and a hero who can never be found when you need him—and replace Jason Bourne with Jackie Chan playing an unflattering Charles Bronson-type character and you have "The Foreigner."

Much of "The Foreigner" revolves around the back-channel dealings of Irish diplomat Liam Hennessy (Pierce Brosnan), a former-IRA member who is now hellbent on protecting his decades-long legacy of diplomacy with the British. So he does what any Bourne-style politico does: he gathers a bunch of guys in a boardroom, and he yells at them about how he wants to know who the Authentic IRA is—names, dates, camera footage, etc. Turn over every stone, shake every tree, climb every mountain—he wants those guys yesterday! Hennessy, an antihero defined by Brosnan's atrocious Irish accent and a forehead peppered with liver spots that seem to proliferate with every extreme closeup, spends a lot of time on the phone, and drinking Scotch. He also does what every other Bourne-style government wonk does: repeatedly curse out his men about how they're always a few steps behind the Authentic IRA, and Quan, the latter of whom has declared a personal war on Hennessy since the Irishman has previously worked with the IRA.

We pause to reflect on the anti-Irish/British politics of "The Foreigner." Why, exactly, do we need a movie that condemns the Irish for having a violent past, despite recent peaceful collaboration with the Brits? Why Irish terrorism, of all things, in a year where institutionalized misogyny and White Nationalism have become unavoidable topics? Chan has, in the past, spoken out against anti-Chinese-government protesters. So it's not too much of a leap in logic to imagine that his reactionary real-life politics might lead him to disdain terrorists who become politicians. Still: this is the problem he feels should be exploited for an action film? Sure, everybody from a disenfranchised Thor to a newly-revived Paul Kersey wants revenge this year, but picking on the Irish is like diagnosing a gunshot victim's cankle as their most pressing concern.