STAR RATING:*****Unmissable****Very Good***Okay**You Could Go Out For A Meal Instead*Avoid At All Costs
Steven Seagal should have got a better agent.After Exit Wounds miraculously went straight to number one at the US box office and temporarily restored his position as a top ranking Hollywood action star,his next step was not to go for a leading role in a film by another big name,Hollywood action director like John Woo or Michael Bay,or even his old aquaintance Andrew Davis,but to go to trashy,sloppy DTV action director Albert Pyun and appear in a supporting role in a Godawful piece of dreck by the name of Ticker.This,did,however,go straight to video (as just about every film Pyun's ever made has) and probably went unnoticed by the cinema going public.However,when the film Half Past Dead was released a year later,in which Mr.Ponytail co starred with gravel voiced rap midget Ja Rule,the gimmick appeared to have worn off,and the film,unlike EW which started the whole Seagal/rappers thing,was a mega flop.Maybe it had something to do with it being released on the same weekend as Harry Potter 2,but nevertheless,flop it was,and now,Seagal appears to have plummeted smack-bang right to the position his career was in five years ago with the straight-to-video action movie The Foreigner,a labourous,over-stylised dud that runs for 92 minutes,but ends up feeling more like 992.
This is probably owed more than anything to a totally incomprehensible plot,with too many thinly plotted twists,turns and red herrings in it to sustain interest.
Seagal's raspy voice has always seemed to prove a hinderance to any movie he's in,but he mumbles so badly at certain stages in this,even the highest pitched dolby pro logic sound system probably couldn't make him sound any more audible.
Aside from this,the movie,especially for a 15 certificate,is full of gratuitous violence,mainly in the form of graphic shootings,especially from the Dunoir character.There are some other rather grisly images too,but the shootings are certainly the most consistent.
Certain scenes have a nice visual flair,and the action's not bad,but overall,this is a ponderous mess that shows clearly the direction in which Seagal's star is falling.**
