When you watch a Seagal movie, you expect good action. You expect fighting, not just a lot of shooting like in this flick. And: you expect a rather simple story. OK, I can live with a more complex story even though it's a Seagal movie. But this one, this is, I don't know what to say. It's very, very confusing indeed. At the end of the movie, I had major problems figuring out what had happened. And I know I'm not the only one. The story lacks so much information and is so full of plot holes that it's nearly impossible to keep track of what's happening in the movie. There are many people in the movie, people change sides all the time, and it switches locations too often. Terrible. I just don't understand why it looks like Seagal is making a sort of sequel to this one.

Im hoping this was made before Half Past Dead and Exit Wounds because it was rubbish, Seagal wasnt to blame it was down to the crap directing when the few action scenes took place. The plot was also confusing and basically just felt rushed out, maybe it was shelved and released to capitalise on Seagals newer films??

3/10

He's not through yet, bring on Under Siege 3 and loose some weight!

The movie fascinated me because of the plot, but once it got underway my fascination took a different direction. I think for the only time in my life I laughed at people getting shot. Segall's Dutch accomplice shoots everyone! He himself is shot four different times. The hotel clerk won't give out a room number? Ask her to call and see which number she dials. Then, instead of unobtrusively going to that room, shoot her!

The farce is complete when Segall faces down an opponent holding a gun 20 yards away. He flings a flight recorder CD with a little C4 stuck on like gum at his assailant. We see the disk igniting in mid-air in slow motion. Does the other guy shoot? No, he just stares at a CD coming to blow him away. The CD has the extra fun effect of propelling him backwards and upwards through a conveniently placed 2nd story picture window.

I must admit; I enjoyed this so much that I immediately went out to get another Segall movie to see if it is as ridiculous. I can't explain why this is entertaining, but it is! IT IS!!

The Foreigner is a straight-to-video Steven Seagal film that was originally intended to be released as a theatrical feature in March, 2003, an intention which was reportedly reversed when Seagal's prior film (Half Past Dead) tanked at the box office. According to some reports, the film had a lavish $20 million budget, including location shoots in Warsaw and Paris, and was completed as part of the studio's obligation to a two-picture deal which was negotiated after the relative success of Exit Wounds seemed to indicate that Seagal still had a solid following.

Despite the size of their investment, Sony Screen Gems probably made the right move in shelving this movie. It is nearly incomprehensible. What am I saying? It IS incomprehensible. I don't think I understood what was going on at all, except in the very broadest terms.

Seagal is employed by a mysterious guy to deliver a mysterious package to another mysterious guy. Other mysterious guys try to stop him. Other highly mysterious guys try to kill the moderately mysterious guys who try to stop him. Other really, really mysterious guys do especially mysterious stuff, all of which which was in fact too mysterious for me to figure out. The intended recipient's mysterious wife tries to intercept the package before it can be delivered to her husband. Because he is a self-proclaimed "consummate professional" who has been hired to deliver the package only into the hands of the husband, Seagal at first defies the wife, then later gets involved in protecting her and her daughter from other mysterious guys with unexplained agendas, as well as from her husband.

Many people have mysterious, cryptic conversations. Many people blow each other's brains out. Some guys seem to die more than once, while in other scenes gunfights end without a clear view of the result, so the audience sees somebody die, but is not sure which one of the gunslingers is headed to boot hill. Allegiances shift often, adding further mystery. Or should I say confusion?

I don't know who was on whose side, or what anybody really wanted, and the resolution was as unsatisfying as the exposition. At the end of the movie, I just sat there thinking, "That's the end? What the ...?"

I couldn't even figure out the credits. IMDb says that Aussie actress Kate Fischer (from "Sirens") was in this film, but I'll be damned if I know where. Either she was left on the cutting room floor or she wisely opted out of the project. She could have found some activities more beneficial to her career, like having unnecessary surgery, ripping those pesky insert cards out of magazines, or taking some community college courses in animal husbandry.

Seagal used to be a pretty fair hand-to-hand combatant, but the action scenes didn't manage to redeem this film at all. Seagal is in his 50's now and is a very large man, so he is reduced to a mimimal level of physical exertion and even during that he is contained in a knee-length coat to hide his inchoate Brandoesque girth. He might even get a little winded removing the wrappers from candy bars, although that's understandable if you estimate just how many of those he must have to eat to maintain his present girth.

Steven Seagal seemed to be making a comeback with Exit Wounds, but if his last film was half past dead, this one must be pretty close to filling out the other half.

What made Steven Seagal great 10 years ago continues to be sorely missed by any of his continuing fans. "The Foreigner" is yet another Seagal film that can be classified as average at best. The film is slow and plodding, badly shot, and viewers can decipher as to whether or not it is Seagal in a particular scene or a poorly chosen stunt double. Seagal is grossly overweight and wears a long leather jacket in a shoddy attempt to cover up the matter. Max Ryan is miscast as his nemesis. Kate who? is the leading lady. The action scenes are far and few between, and poorly done. Seagal's best attribute (martial arts) consumes only a few scenes in the entire film, and nifty camera work tries to cover up the fact that Seagal no longer moves like he used to. Close ups of Seagal moving his hands in a furious manner make it appear as though he is still fighting, then his stunt double takes over and finishes the scene. The similiarities between this film and his other recent release "Half Past Dead" are all negatives. The bad hairpiece, fast camera work, weakened plot, and clearly a man who no longer wants to try to succeed as an action star. Seagal appears to be depressed. It is clear why Screen Gems/Sony Pictures opted to release this straight to video.

Lord have mercy! Why was this film made? Why did Seagal and rising star Max Ryan agree to be in it? The Foreigner is so excruciatingly bad in every conceivable way that it boggles the mind.

The film has an ultra-cheap look to it. Like a budget of a couple of bucks was far out of their reach. What's worse is that the makers know this and try to make it look slick to compensate. The result is a film that just don't look right. The fight scenes are so dull and edited 'discretely' to hide the fact that Steven Seagal is not in good shape anymore. None of them are engaging or exciting. The plot is nonsense that doesn't interest in the slightest way or have any uniqueness to it. The Eastern-Europe locations (a sly move by the producers to keep the budget down, or non-existent) look unpleasant and should not be serving as the backdrop for an 'action' film (what action?).

And what is the deal with the title? As far as I could tell everyone in the movie was foreign. Which ONE does the title refer to?

The DVD is in 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen and in Dolby 5.1 sound. Neither are remarkable enough to warrant even a single rent. The Foreigner is not worth one second of your time. Gotta love that tagline tho! 'If they think they can stop him, they're dead wrong.' Sheesh!

This has got to be THE worst Steven Segal movie I have ever watched (even worse than eco-piffle like On Deadly Ground & Fire Down Below). I'll start with the good points..., It's got stylish direction for a DTV movie and has wonderful scenry... That's it! The story dosen't really go anywhere, it's just an array of well staged set pieces just so seagal go shoot bad guys (the body count can easily match Tarantino at his bloodiest!). The plot is needlessly complicated and confusing you forget who the good and bad guys are. The acting (I use the term loosely) is mediocre at best, seagal's usual ONE constipated expression and wooden acting I can take but the others especially the Brits were down right terrible.

What's in the package? Why are bad guys after it? Is seagal being set up?

WHO GIVES A S***!

When I rented this movie at my local Blockbuster (Once i'd paid) the assistant laughed at me and said it was the worst movie in the shop I could have picked! (I felt like punching him till my arm went numb)

Anyway, I haven't seen Half Past Dead or Out for a kill yet and i daren't go back for more humiliation at my store, but they can't be anyworse than this turkey

The soundtrack is supposed to be young and hip - It just gave me a suuden urge for half a dozen asprins.

All in all this is Seagal at his WORST! The guy who's gained about 100Ibs and looks well past it, he's a guy who just doesn't no when to stop, he should retire gracefully NOW! and have a go behind the camera or become a Martial arts teacher or something.

My rating 2/10 (1 point for scenery)

SCREEN GEMS planned to give this one a cinema release, hopefully to ride on the success of HALF PAST DEAD, when HPD flopped, this movie (THE FOREIGNER) was shelved and went straight to DVD. This is probably the best thing that could have happened to SEAGAL, i don't think i could have taken it, watching people leave or laugh at the cinema, at this (let's say) complicated-mess of a movie

With every new year, comes new excitement over a new STEVEN SEAGAL flick. And i'll say one thing about the stout sensei, his films may have gone downhill, but his 'video art' improves with every new release. This DVD cover has SEAGAL wielding a gun, a hot babe in the background, helicopters passing over the Eiffel tower and a car whizzing about in mid-air.........Sounds great! "SPECIAL DELIVERY-ACTION" proclaims the back cover, and it further announces that "Amid exotic locales and loads of explosive excitement, THE FOREIGNER is a heart-pounding thriller from the king of action (i take it, they mean SEAGAL?) that'll keep you on the edge of your seat"....Phew!......You soon find out they TRI-STAR are being (just) a little economical with the truth, on this one.

Here SEAGAL (working with hack director MICHAEL OBLOWITZ) try (and mostly fail) to go for that old school 'Harry Palmer/Dirk Bogarde' style espionage flick, were action takes a back seat, to plot. Unfortunately, what we have here is little plot, AND very little action, so the rest is stretched out with meaningless 'filler'

SEAGAL plays JONATHAN COLD (great name, eh!) who is hired by a shadowy crime boss (aren't they all) to deliver a 'mysterious-package'(tm) across France, but enemy agents try (and mostly fail) to intercept him on his mission. On paper (and certainly on the DVD write up) this sounds great, OUT FOR JUSTICE meets RONIN, but the plot makes little or no sense. And SEAGAL (as much as i like the guy) looks sluggish, and rather bloated. His (once magnificent) fight scenes are reduced to quick cut (waist upward) speed-ups. And in most cases (the fight with MAX RYAN) look terribly 'doubled' On the plus side, the movie is lensed well enough, and (god forbid) you might have to watch it 2-or-3 times in order to understand what's happening (but you might not want to waste four and a half hours of your life, like this!) Had the movie not concentrated on 'meaningless murders of (mostly) innocent bystanders, and concentrated on more SEAGAL hand-to-broken-wrist style combat, it certainly might have ranked up there with his early 90's input. However, lazy performances and little martial-arts for your money spent make this an extremely guilty pleasure, and one for the die-hard fans (that's me, then?).

This is one FOREIGNER desperately seeking asylum from it's own pretensions.

What's worse is, that not even a year later, SEAGAL further rubbished his cred, by making (the dreadful) OUT FOR A KILL (with the same director) And he's now RUMOURED to be making a follow-up to THE FOREIGNER........Don't do it STEVEN!!

Because i like SEAGAL in anything, i'll give it a 6 and a half.

If you like action thriller adventure I will recommend this to you, but its a little hard to follow. Steve Seagal is a total bad ass but its hard to hear him cause he never talks loud in it also he only makes that one face the whole time. The action was cool butt I fell asleep close to the end so i don't really know how it ended also it was hard to tell what was going on like important parts seemed like they were missing. I still watched it cause i really like steve seagal and like to watch all his movies by him but i wouldn't recommend it unless you really like his movies. this one is good, but its not one of his best ones.

Since I'm from Norway (one of the top ten (or so) richest countries in the world), it was much fun to watch how we use trucks from the 50ies and live in cottages from the medieval times. And since we have very strict laws when it comes to handguns, it was fun to see how much guns there actually were in Norway during the five minutes of the shooting there. Mr. Direct-to-video even managed to bring his silencer on short notice, so he must have powerful friends in the customs.

Please do at least _some_ research before going to an "exotic" country, dudes -- you may hurt the feelings of old fans.

Sverre -- old fan with hurt feelings.

"The Foreigner" is a tale of foreign intrigue with Seagal at the center as a deep cover operative who has a package which everyone wants and are willing to kill to get. The flick is uninspired with less of the usual action stuff which put Seagal on the movie map (fire fights, hand-to-hand combat, pyrotechnics, stunts, etc.) and more of a story which is convoluted, uninteresting, and full of meaningless filler. What action there is seems token and gratuitous while Seagal, looking more and more like a pork chop, meanders through this insipid flick expressionless and bored while manifesting no improvement in acting ability. Somewhere around "The Glimmer Man" or "Fire Down Below" Seagal flicks took a nose dive and "The Foreigner" is just an continuation of that trend. Nothing here worth watching except for the most die-hard Seagal fans. (C-)

Always enjoy Steven Seagal in most of his films, however, this film was simply horrible. Steven Seagal,(Jonathan Cold),"Today You Die",'05, was a wheeler dealer of a character and had just finished an assignment for a creepy looking sinister under-world person. Once again, Jonathan decides to take on another case to deliver a package. Everybody seems to want this package for some reason and all kinds of hoods decided to go after Jonathan and secure this important package. There is one hood that Jonathan tries to kill over and over and over again and never seems to succeed. Anna Louise Plowman(Mrs. Meredeth Van Aiken),"Shanghai Knights",'03 plays the wife of a very rich man who wants this package and Mrs. Van Aiken has some dealings with Jonathan, but not romantic. This entire picture is a Merry-go-round of simply a package and hoods never being able to be Killed.

*MINOR SPOILERS*

How in the world was this ever conceived, let alone be considered for a theatrical run?! Yes. It is true. Seagal's star was staring to wane, but after Segal made a brief comeback with Exit Wounds, Seagal had a chance to become a top action star again; well. He blew it big time with Half Past Dead, and they decided to send this movie straight to video; smart choice geniuses! I'm actually a fan of Steven Seagal when he's motivated, and that is very rare these days. The movie looks and feels incredibly cheap; despite that it had a healthy budget of around $16,000,000 it takes place in Warsaw Poland, and the atmosphere feels absolutely miserable. It's dull as dishwater to watch, since there isn't much action to speak of until the end and when it happens, most of it is in slow motion with very poor editing. It came off incredibly corny. It also tries to throw in a half-assed subplot with a Mother & Daughter to no avail. Not convinced on how bad this is yet? I'll continue. There is a scene where Steven Seagal is forced at gun point, and he and a villain head to the bathroom with a package. The package explodes while Steven Seagal is relieving (peeing) himself in a urinal Seagal manages to hurl himself threw a glass window with fire from the explosion engulfing him, and he escapes completely unscathed (!)

Steven Seagal is god awful here. He is completely out of shape, and has a baggy trench coat on to hide all the flab in his gut. Not only is his voice dubbed on occasion, but he is blatantly annoyed about the whole thing, with a look on his face that screams "Let's get this over and done with!" Seagal has never been great at emotion, but at least he had solid intensity. He shows off emotion here with plenty of inconsequential mumbling. He was sleepwalking here, and was very lazy to boot by doing minimal fighting scenes; I don't blame him for being unhappy with this film, but show some professionalism! Max Ryan is way too OTT as the villain. He has a cigarette dangling from his mouth in every scene! He was extremely annoying. Anna-Louise Plowman is pretty to look at, but that's it. The film didn't do enough to make me care about her, or her daughter.

Note: I couldn't resist adding some memorable cheesy lines

Meredith (Anna-Louise Plowman): May I ask Who's Calling? Jonathan Cold (Steven Seagal): No thanks. I'll call back later

Jonathan Cold: I'd say the only thing unexpected is that I'm still alive

Jonathan Cold: You kinda look like Ray Charles (referring to Mr. Mimms Sherman Augustus) then again… Ray probably can't shoot as good as you, right?

Final Thoughts: Seagal has done many terrible DTV films over the years, and this is undoubtedly one of the worst. It's not as bad as Attack Force or a couple others, but it's still abominably bad. Even if you're a die hard Seagal fan, I can't on good conscience, recommend this to you. It has very little action, and you'll most likely be bored to tears. Stay away!

1/10

Watching a Steven Seagal movie these days is like going to McDonald's. You know it won't be very good, but you know exactly what to expect. Call us crazy but we can't help liking Mr. Seagal and watching his movies, most of which are just terrible. Some of his earlier efforts were good, well-made with decent scripts, but in more recent years, between him being grossly out of shape and scripts being written by some high school kid, not to mention the lack of budget, there just isn't much to recommend these flicks. In this outing, we have to have a highly-trained man who works outside the box to deliver a mysterious package to someone. Now the package is just a box wrapped in paper with strings tied around it. My initial thought was why the devil didn't they just ship it via UPS with no fuss and no muss? Nobody would even know it had been shipped and there was nothing about it to make it stand out. Of course then there would have been no story, and even with Mr. Seagal in charge of the package there wasn't much story. At one moment his unfailing marksmanship was deadly at any distance and at another he couldn't hit a guy across the room with a shotgun until the fourth try. As usual in this type of film everybody wants to kill Mr. Seagal but somehow he always comes through. There was absolutely no reason in the world to send the package anyway. The whole thing could have been handled by the shipper with a match. End of story. And of course, in this type of film, his handlers always want to eliminate Mr. Seagal. In one scene the baddie tells a top killer he wants Mr. Seagal dead and an empty folder at Langley tomorrow. Later, when he talks to his boss on the phone, he asks what his boss wants him to do about Mr. Seagal. I realize dead and an empty folder at Langley is pretty vague, but even so, I got the idea before this hit-man did. One other concern is that if you don't have the budget to make an action flick with lots of special effects, it's better to stick to something less spectacular, like a little love story or something. As I said above, we can't help liking Mr. Seagal. I especially loved him when he was posing as ship's cook and, despite the attack going on around him, spent a good deal of time worrying about his pies in the oven. So despite the deterioration of his films, I suppose we'll keep watching until there are no more.

Two things are changed from then.First of all i am not a kid anymore,and second most of new Seagal movies are just terrible.This is on my opinion the worst movie ever made with Derailed starred by Jean Claude Van Damme.There is no plot in this movie,the plot is just an excuse to shoot some terrible action scenes which are painful to watch.I love action movies,but this is not an action movie....This isn't a movie...this is a group of irritating scenes which are connected in annoying way to kill the viewers love for the action movies.I am sorry but i don't have any respect for anyone who liked this movie.He has a serious intelligence problem then.I hope that Seagal will make some new good movies in the future.Good luck for him !

After "Half past dead" comes a movie that was a nail to Seagal's coffin. Goodbye movie career. "The Foreigner" is a straight-to-video Steven Seagal film. It was originally intended to be released as a theatrical feature. God knows why , since it looks even more low budget than "Half past dead" and is even worse. At least "Half past dead" was laughable in some places and had some kind of plot (ripped off "The Rock", but still a plot).

This one is incomprehensible . Seagal is a mysterious guy hired by mysterious guy to deliver mysterious package to another mysterious guy . Mysterious guys appear and try to stop him . Lots of mysteries , eh ? This is only thing I can say about the plot . I agree with the reviewer who wrote that the movie makers filmed the action scenes first then decided to put it together as a movie. The plot is nonsense. What is the deal with the title ? It's interesting for me that this movie was made in Poland and there are some known Polish actors in it (Przemyslaw Saleta , Miroslaw Zbrojewicz). It doesn't change the fact that the movie sucks . Seagal has done many terrible DTV films over the years and this is undoubtedly one of the worst.

The film has an ultra-cheap look to it. Steven Seagal is not in good shape anymore. The fight are so obviously edited that it makes head hurt. Shootouts are done in bad slow motion. The atmosphere feels absolutely miserable. There is one scene with exploding package that is so stupid , so bad I will never forget it.

ARGHHHHH ! Why I'm wasting my time with writing about this piece of s*** ?! I give it 1/10 , because I can't give 0. Enough said.

Usually when you know you've selected a turkey to watch you tend to watch it through to the end- before feeling ultimately disappointed and chastising yourself on how better you could have invested two hours of your life. No such chastisement needed this time, this film was so bad, I switched off and deleted within twenty minutes. There was negligible plot, poor dialogue and atrocious acting. The thing which was the final straw was when the guy with the irritating bum fluff beard (an inducement in itself to switch off) shot and killed a maid for no reason, in order to take someone's meal into the dining room. I'm still steaming writing this!

For quite some time I have been of the opinion that Seagal's hugely divisive cinematic oeuvre, especially the more creatively diminished examples from the noughties are best taken as an entirely separate cinematic entity, perhaps, even being a fabulously disposable micro-genre in of itself! Unlike JCVD's proletarian, frequently moral pugilist, Seagal's darker protagonists are rarely sympathetic, being retrograde, unrealistically indestructible, monotonously monosyllabic, orgiastically violent outsiders set loose on their pitiless swathes of blood-soaked vengeance, or elite, inscrutable stiletto-cool government trained super soldiers forced to fight the system they were initially trained to protect. And in 2003's convoluted actioner 'The Foreigner', Seagal's surly deep cover spook Jonathan Cold inevitably finds himself the hard target in a malign corporate conspiracy to purloin the evidence of a tragic plane crash that might have been covertly orchestrated for Machiavellian political motives: cue much physical carnage, conspicuous body doubles, happy-slappy Kung-foolishness, and asthmatically delivered one-liners! Love it!!!!

While director Oblowitz's pacey, stridently squib-happy Seagal shoot 'em up is another unapologetically knuckle-headed thriller, The Foreigner's wintry Polish locations, plentiful old school pyrotechnics, strident score by David & Eric Wurst, and the deliciously eccentric array of scenery-chewing gunmen give it more of a skewed psychotronic edge than one may initially expect. Seagal's monomaniacal Jonathan Cold predictably obliterates everyone on his relentless quest of bodily destruction without ever cracking the veneer on his bizarre-looking helmet head! Seagal's sinister shadow Max Ryan oozes ambivalence as the dangerously twitchy, perma-smoking psychopath Dunoir, a volatile killer so despicable he cruelly cold-cocked an innocent waitress merely to get hold of her delectably iced buns!!! And kudos to super charismatic actor Deobia Oparei who effectively steals the film with his dynamic, oratorically-inclined, Seagal strangling thug 'The Stranger'. While Seagal uncharacteristically doesn't get the picture-perfect girlfriend this time out, there's a rather unsavoury scene at the beginning sordidly suggesting he only just recently enjoyed naughties with a lissome beauty over half his age, which does much to undermine Mr. Cold's hypocritical claim to having unimpeachable ethics; perhaps yet more damning evidence of Seagal's 'art' imitating a no less questionable life?