Bullet Train
There’s murder on an orient express as Brad Pitt once again exhibits his comic chops.
Kill Brad: Zazie Beetz gets the upper hand
David Leitch likes a bit of fisticuffs. He is, after all, a stunt coordinator and former stuntman, and produced the John Wick trilogy (with collaborator Chad Stahelski). He also cut his directorial teeth on the action-packed Atomic Blonde, Deadpool 2 and Fast & Furious: Hobbs & Shaw. However, a stunt alone cannot tell a story – and Bullet Train is chock-a-block with them. Having said that, it’s no small feat that Leitch has managed to contain most of the action on a single train, albeit with numerous flashbacks. But unlike in The Lady Vanishes, Strangers on a Train and Compartment No. 6, this high-speed locomotive is heaving with assassins with conflicting agendas.
Bullet Train actually feels more like Kill Bill on rails. In fact, the influence of Quentin Tarantino hovers over the production like a stage whisper. There are two wise-cracking hitmen, Tangerine and Lemon, with the North Carolina-born Brian Tyree Henry as the latter, adopting a passable East End accent with a profound obsession for Thomas the Tank Engine (he even does an impersonation of the show’s narrator, Ringo Starr). There are also numerous samurai kill squads, a potpourri of cross-cutting narrative threads, generous helpings of pop cultural allusions and a very dark comic sensibility. But Leitch and his scriptwriter Zak Olkewicz are no Tarantino and the dialogue isn’t funny enough nor the style stylish enough to warrant the suffocation of content.
Brad Pitt plays a hitman who is given a straightforward assignment by his handler after a much-needed break. His new nom de plume is ‘Ladybug’, as the beetle is considered lucky in many cultures. However, this Ladybug is no John Wick and when he boards his bullet train from Tokyo to Kyoto, the simple assignment of walking off with a silver suitcase proves trickier than anybody had anticipated…
As he proved in the recent The Lost City, Pitt has an agreeable self-deprecating way with comedy and steals most of the laughs here. There’s a good turn, too, from Joey King as an assassin barely out of high school who gives Chloë Grace Moretz’s hit-girl in Kick-Ass a run for her money. She, too, like Brian Tyree Henry, has elected to adopt an English accent, which seems like some kind of in-joke. As Lemon’s partner, Tangerine, Aaron Taylor-Johnson also plays an assassin from Blighty, like a Cockney Nicolas Cage with a questionable moustache. On paper, all this should prove a riot, but it’s so OTT and ultimately repetitive, that the moments of genuine wit get lost in the pandemonium like a quip in a squabble. By the final curtain, exhaustion has replaced any giggles one might have enjoyed along the way. The stunts are terrific, though, if you like that sort of thing.
JAMES CAMERON-WILSON
Cast: Brad Pitt, Joey King, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Brian Tyree Henry, Andrew Koji, Hiroyuki Sanada, Michael Shannon, Benito A Martínez Ocasio, Sandra Bullock, Zazie Beetz, Logan Lerman, Masi Oka, Karen Fukuhara, Jim Garrity, David Leitch, Channing Tatum, Ryan Reynolds.
Dir David Leitch, Pro Kelly McCormick, David Leitch and Antoine Fuqua, Screenplay Zak Olkewicz, Ph Jonathan Sela, Pro Des David Scheunemann, Ed Elisabet Ronaldsdottir, Music Dominic Lewis, Costumes Sarah Evelyn, Sound Luke Gibleon, Dialect coaches Jamison Bryant and Elena Baranova.
Columbia Pictures/Fuqua Films/87North Productions-Sony Pictures.
126 mins. USA/Japan. 2022. UK Rel: 3 August 2022. US Rel: 5 August 2022. Cert. 15.
