Bullet Train is a film that desperately wants to emulate Quentin Tarantino but comes off as a version of the Murder on the Orient Express on drugs.
Adapted from the bestselling 2010 novel by Japanese author Kotaro Isaka, and directed and produced by David Leitch (John Wick), Bullet Train is a frantic high-speed journey of repetitious fight scenes, neon intertitles, quirky characters and sudden flashbacks.
Brad Pitt stars as a contracted operative, known as Ladybug, who is typically hired by mysterious clients to perform shady jobs like assassinations. But after some soul searching and therapy to cleanse himself of his previous bloody missions Ladybug has returned to work, tasked with retrieving a briefcase on the train by his handler (Sandra Bullock). Ladybug just has to get off at the next stop with the briefcase. However, Ladybug has extremely bad luck. The train is full of assassins, fortified with guns, knives and samurai swords, all with intertwining missions of their own.
Pitt wears a juvenile bucket hat and black-brimmed glasses as he skitters up and down the train like a lost puppy. His character’s clear anxiety about returning to work only seemed to be soothed by conversations with Bullock that I wish I could have fast-forwarded. Pitt’s name brings momentum to the film but the other passengers were definitely the driving force.
Thankfully, Tangerine (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) and Lemon (Brian Tyree Henry) are on board relieving the tediousness of Pitt’s Labrador-esque character. Taylor-Johnson is your typical suited and booted East-London geezer who looks as if he has been copy and pasted from any one of Guy Ritchie’s much more stylish and thrilling action films.
His brother in arms Henry, on the other hand, has more of an idiotic lovability about him. Lemon is a unique character with unique interests like Thomas the Tank Engine. No, I am not joking. The children’s television and book series acts as Lemon’s guide on how to read people’s personality and character. A Thomas is the elite person but a Diesel is a shady, slippery character. And surprise surprise Bullet Train is full of Diesels.
The passenger list also includes Joey King (Prince), as what looks like your average school girl, who stood her own against the big names in the film. As the only woman of note, it was surprising to me when a Fiji water bottle floating between the cabins received more back story than the deserving King.
In films such as these, the action sequences usually pump life into the scenes redeeming it from the amateurish plotting. Leitch has shown he knows how to direct chair gripping action sequences in Deadpool 2 and Atomic Blonde, but this time his expertise was left on the platform.
As the film went on, the gimmick of the train setting became a double-edged sword restricting the action sequences. Regardless of how many guns, knives, samurai swords and even a rare venomous snake were introduced into the mix, they were unsuccessful at curing the predictability or resurrecting some excitement.
2/5
Image Credits – The MovieDB