Runtime: 113 min

Director: Amos Poe

Cast:
Eric Mitchell ... Max Menace
Anya Phillips ... Doll
Patti Astor ... Fili Harlow
Deborah Harry ... Dee Trik
Séverine ... Zazu Weather (as Terens Séverine)
Robin Crutchfield ... Fido Hex
Kitty Sondern ... Kit Bag
Duncan Hannah ... King Bag / Shake
Steven Kramer ... Mouse
Susan Morris ... Mo Bag
Amos Poe ... Amos Nitrate
David Forshtay ... For Bag
Pusante Byzantium ... Skratch / Rumanian
Ana Marton ... Fullee / Rumanian
Chirine El Khadem ... Mr. Kool

Description: "I DON'T deserve this," the title character of "The Foreigner" is heard to say as he reclines in numb despair on his bed at the Chelsea Hotel. It is a thought likely to be shared by whatever audiences are attracted to the film, which is being shown through Sunday as part of the New American Filmmakers Series at the Whitney Museum.

""The Foreigner" deals with the "punk" sensibility as manifested at CBGB, the rock nightclub on the Bowery; the streets and lofts of SoHo and the leather bars of the West Village.

The subject is not without interest, although punk seems to have lost some of its spark in the six months or so since the film was made. The trouble is that no one in the cast, which includes a couple of comely young women, has the least idea of how to act, the story is infantile and the photography, sound and editing are primitive in a way that stopped being amusing 10 years ago.

""The Foreigner" was written, produced and directed by Amos Poe, with the assistance, as a screen credit coyly notes, of a $5,000 personal loan from the Merchants Bank of New York. It seems Incredible that a museum that is exhibiting Saul Steinberg on the third floor should be showing the cinematic equivalent of kindergarten scribbles on the second.