The Foreigner poster

The Foreigner (2017)

Film · 1h 54m · Rated R

Action, Crime, Thriller

A father's quest for revenge against terrorists becomes a gritty, tense cat-and-mouse game.

Suspenseful and pulpy. A full-attention watch at a brisk pace. Emotionally it is devastating.

Streaming on Prime Video, Paramount+, The Roku Channel (free) and Tubi (free).

The Foreigner parents guide

What we could confirm fits an R: brutal violence and some strong language.

Scare
Mildly scary
A few tense or eerie moments.
Jump scares
A couple
One or two sudden jolts.
Gore
Light gore
Some blood or injury, briefly.
Violence
Brutal violence
Our top level for violence.
Sex and nudity
None flagged
It is rated R, so treat our zero as unconfirmed.
Language
Moderate
Some strong profanity, a few f-words.

How we rate: an AI reads what is known about each title and tags it 0 to 3; we check the tags against a hand-rated set and correct them by hand when readers tell us. Estimates, not a scene-by-scene review. Spot a mistake? Tell us.

Three questions

Is The Foreigner scary?
Only a little. The Foreigner has a few tense moments, nothing that follows you to bed.
How gory is The Foreigner?
Light gore and brutal violence.
What is The Foreigner rated, and is it OK for kids?
Rated R, and it earns it: brutal violence and some strong language. Not one for kids.

What is The Foreigner about?

Quan is a humble London businessman whose long-buried past erupts in a revenge-fueled vendetta when the only person left for him to love – his teenage daughter – dies in an Irish Republican Army car bombing. His relentless search to find the terrorists leads to a cat-and-mouse conflict with a British government official whose own past may hold the clues to the identities of the elusive killers.

Does it have a happy ending? (spoiler-safe)

It leaves the ending open to interpretation.

Cast and crew

Directed byMartin Campbell
StarringPierce Brosnan, Jackie Chan, Rory Fleck-Byrne, Ray Fearon, Charlie Murphy, Orla Brady

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Uses the TMDB API; not endorsed or certified by TMDB. Intensity, content, tone and pace tags are CouchRot's own.