Another late review, seeing as this movie is over a month old by now, but I just recently got the chance to it, and I had some thoughts to share on it. Bullet Train was one of the most hyped-up movies of the year. Not so much a mouth-to-mouth style of hyping, but more so through the very heavy marketing campaign prior to the film’s release. It seemed that everywhere I looked, for months on end I saw ads, trailers, TV spots, sneak peeks and more advertising Bullet Train, and it definitely had the effect of at least intriguing me. I have a bit of a weak spot for well-crafted action movies with a cool premise that are removed from any franchise affiliations and looking at the trailers hinting at a game of cat and mouse on a high-speed train with a couple of well-known actors, I knew for sure I would eventually want to check this out.
The movie follows the exploits of Brad Pitt’s character, codenamed ‘Ladybug’, a hitman on a job in Tokyo, which involves boarding a bullet train to fulfill the objective. However, on the train, Ladybug realizes that a number of other quirky hired hitmen, assassins and mercenaries are also onboard and that their missions tie into his. As objectives clash and chaos ensues, Ladybug is in the middle of something bigger than he realizes, being torn between completing his mission and trying to get off the train.
To give my overall thoughts, I can sum everything up by saying that Bullet Train is not great, as it was never going to be, but it’s far from bad. None of its disparate elements rise particularly above what you would expect from a Hollywood action comedy, save for one, which pulls this movie up just a bit compared with others of the same type, and that is the acting. Not that these are particularly good performances, but every actor in this movie knows perfectly well what movie they are in and they camp it up big time for great comedic effect, giving pretty much all characters really good charisma which quickly endears them to the audience and keeps the viewer hooked.
The plot itself is pretty generic for this type of movie and filled with plenty of clichés of the genre, offering up a few unexpected twists regarding character deaths or surprise appearances, while still leading towards a predictable outcome. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but seeing as the movie is somewhat torn between being a full-on comedy, or an intricate action movie with an intriguing narrative, it never really succeeds at being either, and this generic nature of the plot is a by-product of that fact. Because of this, I would have liked to have seen something a bit bolder in the script that I would have been sure to remember about the story after the movie ended, since, as it stands, the story might be what I’ll remember least about Bullet Train.
One thing I think the movie does succeed in that I would like to mention is making these characters really distinct from one another. Characterization is not really a focus of Bullet Train, understandable for an action-comedy, but visually, comedically, and in terms of attitude, the entire cast makes a very powerful impression the second they come on screen and that helps a lot in creating a diverse ensemble of quirky hitmen that don’t fade into the background of the convoluted plot.
Which leads me to the comedic facet of the movie. Like I said, here the movie succeeds a bit more purely because the actors are really selling the absurdity of the story and the dialogue. Brad Pitt really leverages his comedic talent for awkward funny moments, making Ladybug very relatable in a funny way given how his personal attitude doesn’t match his profession or his role on the train. Sometimes though, he doesn’t feel like the lead character and he really should. We spend long periods of time on the train away from Ladybug, and at times, I find myself missing his presence. Having said that, the real stars of the movie are Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Brian Tyree Henry as Tangerine and Lemon. They have such good chemistry and sell their lines so naturally that they made me chuckle more than any other character. Again, I do say chuckle because while the actors are great, the script is not that funny and lets its leads down a few times, keeping Bullet Train from being one of those great action comedies that are as hilarious as they are clever.
The action scenes themselves are also pretty standard. No one fight scene is incredibly choreographed or memorable for its camera work. I find this worth mentioning since this movie is directed by former stunt man David Leitch, who made a name for himself in that side of the industry, and in some of his previous movies. Here, though, it doesn’t seem like he dug deep in his bag of tricks for creative ways to frame these sequences, and the main things I liked about them were the comedic bits interwoven and sold very well by the actors.
The movie’s runtime also could have been a bit on the shorter side. A fast-paced movie like this one is, and in such a confined setting runs the risk of exhausting the audience and I think Bullet Train definitely did towards the end. Trimming the story down by 20 minutes would have done a lot towards giving the film a better structure and a more fluid pace. That being said, the climax is pretty compelling, and adequately absurd so it’s not too off putting.
I have a category of movies in my head, that I think most movie fans have, which are ‘Sunday Movies’, movies that don’t call upon your predisposition to watch a particularly deep or thought-provoking production, but instead, to feed your desire to be entertained, to relax, to take a story less seriously and enjoy it for its value as well-crafted piece of visual and audible fiction. I don’t see it as a derogative or lesser category, it can be hard to make a good Sunday Movie, and the best of them are ranked among my favorite movies in general. I think Bullet Train definitely qualifies as a Sunday Movie, and while not among the best of them, it is one I would recommend if you’re looking for a piece of mindless fun, and especially if you know and enjoy these actors. It’s basic, not particularly memorable and could be funnier, but it is entertaining, and I’m more comfortable endorsing it because, even though it is very much a Hollywood production and based on a Japanese literary work, it is at least not part of an existing cinematic IP, and that is something I think should be more replicated.
Also, look out for one or two uncredited cameos. They might be the funniest moments in the movie.
Thank you so much for reading and leave your own thoughts on Bullet Train in the comments below. See you next time.