OnScreen Review: "Bullet Train"
Ken Jones, Chief Film Critic
Brad Pitt is having fun. On the heels of winning an Oscar in 2020 for Once Upon A Time In Hollywood, 2022 has seen him have a extended cameo/supporting role in the Sandra Bullock/Channing Tatum action comedy The Lost City, and now as the lead of an ensemble action comedy flick, Bullet Train, from director David Leitch, a long-time stunt double turned director, who has done some of the better action movies of the last decade (John Wick, Atomic Blonde, Deadpool 2, Hobbs & Shaw).
Bullet Train follows a familiar action formula that is usually a lot of fun, where several quirky people or groups are vying for control of one MacGuffin, in this case a briefcase aboard a high-speed Japanese bullet train bound for Kyoto. Pitt’s character is a self-described grab-and-dash guy, getting back into underworld assassin business after a time away to focus on self-care. Codenamed Ladybug by his handler, he refuses to bring a gun on the job because he doesn’t want that negativity in his life. Finding the briefcase proves to be shockingly easy but getting off the train with it proves to be far more difficult. Unbeknownst to him, there are several more assassin on the train with their own intersecting and competing purposes and interests.
This is one of those movies where all of the main characters are only known by their archetype or codenames. Among them: A man only named “The Father” (Andrew Koji), who is lured onto the train seeking revenge against someone who pushed his son from the top of a building; Lemon (Brian Tyree Henry) and Tangerine (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), two “brothers” who are tasked with escorting a high-profile Yakuza boss’ son and ransom money back to him; The Prince (Joey king), a young assassin posing as a schoolgirl who has her own plans for the briefcase; and The Wolf (Benito A Martínez Ocasio, aka Bad Bunny), a Mexican assassin hellbent on revenge.
Pitt is a talented actor and has a few gears, and this is him playing at his aloofness mode, something similar to his Mr. & Mrs. Smith persona with a little bit of The Mexican and Burn After Reading thrown in. He’s attempting to turn over a new leaf and always attempting, and usually failing, to convince people he is at odds with that the wall between them is just an illusion. Unfortunately for him, and for the body count of the movie, his repeated attempts at proselytizing his therapy mostly falls on deaf ears. The rest of the ensemble is highlighted by the bickering and banter between the Lemon and Tangerine characters, one of whom loves to use Thomas & Friends in explaining people. Frankly, I think they were the best part of the film.
The majority of the movie takes place on a Japanese bullet train, and the movie gets some mileage out of the fish out of water element of these assassins being on a train with civilians, and all of the major characters get flashbacks to fill in their backstories and why they are on the train. The film also makes the most out of limiting the setting to this confined space that is a train, it’s not until the third act that the action quite literally bursts out of its confines.
Perhaps the pedigree of Leitch’s previous work had burdened me with higher expectations for this movie than I should have, because I felt a bit let down, even though it was entertaining overall, and I found myself chuckling more than a few times. This is a film in the vein of Smoking Aces and several Guy Ritchie titles. It felt like Pitt’s Ladybug was a bit too passive a character in the grand scheme of things here, barely a driver of the action and story that is unfolding around him. There is also a lot of discussion about fate and luck and how unlucky Ladybug feels. As the film progresses, the plot contrivances and the action that emphasize luck and accepting whatever fate has in store veer off into almost ludicrous levels.
One film critic I enjoy, Josh Larsen, often talks about the “Zen Chaos” of action movies, the Fast & Furious franchise in particular; how well a film manages to bring its own special kind of order out of the chaotic action it is presenting. In that regard, I found Bullet Train to be a bit lacking, or perhaps trying too hard to show that there was, in fact, order and purpose to everything that was happening, which just felt a little too forced to me, even as I was enjoying the visual aesthetics of the film and the few cameos it has in store for its audience. I wanted to love this movie, but while I liked it and it is entertaining enough, I couldn’t get completely onboard with it.
Rating: 3 out of 5 stars