Jackie Chan's underrated 'Taken'-style thriller is disappearing from Netflix — watch it while you can
Blink, and it's gone! Netflix is pulling 'The Foreigner' on February 1, as reported by Collider. If you've ever meant to watch Jackie Chan and Pierce Brosnan share the screen, this is your window. The 2010s were absolutely stuffed with action thrillers trying to catch the same lightning that 'Taken' bottled. And for a while, it felt like every other movie featured a grizzled man, a terrible loss, and a very specific set of skills. Some worked. Many didn't. A few arrived late to the party but still managed to stand out. 'The Foreigner', released in 2017, belongs in that last category.
Directed by Martin Campbell, the film became a return-to-form moment for a director who had seen both extremes of Hollywood success. Campbell helped launch major franchises with 'GoldenEye', 'The Mask of Zorro', and 'Casino Royale', then hit a rough patch with 'Edge of Darkness' and the much-maligned 'Green Lantern'. Expectations weren't sky-high when 'The Foreigner' arrived. That may have helped. The story is about Quan Ngoc Minh (Jackie Chan), a soft-spoken restaurant owner in London whose life collapses after his daughter is killed in a bombing.
Quan isn't loud about his pain. He doesn't give speeches. He just starts asking questions, and when answers don't come, he applies pressure. The attack is traced back to a breakaway IRA group, pulling British politician Liam Hennessy (Pierce Brosnan) into Quan's path. This isn't the Jackie Chan most people grew up with. There are no slapstick beats or comic pauses to wink at the audience. Chan plays Quan as tired, hurt, and focused, as critics noticed. Many pointed out how grounded his performance felt.
Brosnan, meanwhile, brings a bitterness to Hennessy, a man managing politics, old loyalties, and secrets that refuse to stay buried. It's a role that lets him slip into moral gray areas without apology, something he's leaned into more often in recent years. Viewers who've seen him as a villain on Paramount+'s 'MobLand' will recognize the energy. At the box office, 'The Foreigner' performed far better than many expected. Against a reported $35 million budget, it pulled in close to $150 million worldwide, according to Filmogaz. Reviews leaned positive, and the film currently sits at 66% on Rotten Tomatoes.
There's an interesting bit of genre symmetry, too. Liam Neeson, the face of the 'Taken' wave, recently starred in 'In the Land of Saints and Sinners'. This is another IRA-related thriller, though that film didn't match 'The Foreigner's' commercial results. Meanwhile, Chan has been teasing a return to the 'Rush Hour' franchise, which first made him a household name in the U.S. Also, last year he reprised Mr. Han in 'Karate Kid: Legends', a release that crossed $115 million globally.
