Directed by: David Leitch
Starring: Brad Pitt, Joey King, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Brian Tyree Henry, Logan Lerman, Michael Shannon, Hiroyuki Sanada, Andrew Koji, Sandra Bullock, Channing Tatum, Bad Bunny, Zazie Beetz
Bullet Train is an ironic title for a movie that has to stop dead about every fifteen minutes to explain who did what to whom and why. Despite some inventive action scenes and gung-ho performances by actors who are clearly enjoying themselves, Bullet Train overstays its welcome with too many characters to account for and too much plot. In order to make time for every character to have his/her day in the sun, other ones have to disappear, and in some cases for so long we forget they're still in the movie. Or they're simply killed off in quick, sometimes gory fashion.
Bullet Train opens with Ladybug (Pitt) strutting down a Tokyo street to a Japanese version of Staying Alive. We learn quickly through phone conversations with his handler Maria Beetle (Bullock) that he is a hired assassin, but after therapy wishes to leave his life of crime behind. He refuses to carry or use a gun, but Maria assures him this latest gig is a snatch and grab job. His mission is to board the Bullet Train which speeds around the city, steal a metal briefcase, and depart the bus. Ladybug was brought in as a last-minute replacement for another operative who "called out sick". The heist, of course, doesn't go as planned, because there are other criminals and hit men (and women) after the case as well.
Some of the element after the briefcase includes The Prince (King), a fashionably dressed young lady with a British accent which belies her steely interior, brothers and career hired guns Lemon (Henry) and Tangerine (Taylor-Johnson), a father (Koji) whose son was pushed from a building and now lies in the hospital in a coma, a cartel leader (Bunny) looking for revenge, and others who pop in and out and wind up fighting Ladybug or any combination of the characters listed above. Characters switch alliances and turn on each other with lightning speed, so much so you wonder if they could sue for whiplash if they weren't bleeding to death from gunshot or stab wounds. I won't even attempt to encapsulate these subplots.
The one person each of the characters has in common is The White Death (Shannon), a Russian crime leader who is like a Keyser Soze to these people. He is feared, but so many stories are told about him we wonder which parts are real and which are fiction. Even though there is plenty of violent action to go around, Bullet Train stages it in a tongue-in-cheek manner. Yes, a guy has blood spurting from his neck, but we're kind of, sort of kidding around. Bullet Train, however, is not a parody, but a movie which owes its dialogue and style to The Usual Suspects and Tarantino. Bullet Train doesn't lack for style, dialogue, blood, shooting, stabbing, or fighting, but despite moments of fun which don't come often enough, the movie begins to feel like an exercise in style more than something to care about.
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