Mysterious circumstances see a disparate group of dangerous criminals
gather on a Japanese bullet train.
Review by
Eric Hillis
Directed by: David Leitch
Starring: Brad Pitt, Joey King, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Brian Tyree Henry, Andrew
Koji, Hiroyuki Sanada, Michael Shannon, Benito A Martínez Ocasio
With a title like Bullet Train you might expect a disaster
movie, something along the lines of the 1975 Japanese thriller whose name it
shares (and which later saw its plot nicked for Speed) or Tony Scott's Unstoppable. What you actually get is a disastrous movie, a relic from the bad old
days of the noughties, Murder on the Orient Express put through a Guy
Ritchie blender.
The marketing for director David Leitch's film suggests an action
fest, but there's probably no more than 15 minutes of action in its bloated
126 minute runtime. What little action we do get consists of poorly staged
scraps in confined train carriages, none of which hold a candle to the
famous brawl between Sean Connery and Robert Shaw in
From Russia with Love. The bulk of the movie consists of characters explaining the plot to one
another while they point guns in their faces. At least they don't hold their
guns sideways like the hoods of all those awful turn of the century
Tarantino knockoffs. It's a small mercy, but you need to take what you can
from a movie this terrible.
That plot is needlessly convoluted, revolving around a briefcase filled
with cash that assassin Ladybug (Brad Pitt) is assigned to steal from
a train travelling from Tokyo to Kyoto. The case happens to be in the hands
of Lemon (Brian Tyree Henry) and Tangerine (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), a pair of cockney brothers who have retrieved the case for a notorious
Russian mobster known as "The White Death." Also aboard is a young Russian
woman (Joey King) posing as a posh English schoolgirl, a Japanese
assassin (Andrew Koji) whose son is being held hostage, and various
other international crime figures, some of which take the form of unbilled
cameos.
It takes about two hours before someone questions why a Japanese train
features such a diverse bunch of commuters and so few locals. I guess this
adaptation of a 2010 Japanese novel would have been relocated to the US if
they had bullet trains there (given America's obsession with ammunition,
it's ironic they don't). There's actually no real reason why this scenario
had to play out on a high speed train as its plot moves with the pace of one
of those kiddies' trains you find at fairgrounds.
If you're a fan of noughties era Guy Ritchie you'll have a blast with
Bullet Train, as it boasts all his trademarks: dodgy cockney geezer accents, uninspired
needle drops (an opportunity was missed to populate the soundtrack with
songs about trains - God knows there are enough of them), overwritten
dialogue, quirky character names flashed up on screen and flashbacks that
don't add anything substantial to the narrative. But nobody in their right
mind is a fan of noughties era Guy Ritchie, are they? For some reason a
snake and a toilet feature heavily in the narrative, and if you're familiar
with the 1987 Andy Sidaris directed girls-with-guns classic
Hard Ticket to Hawaii you'll be convinced
Bullet Train is heading for a homage to that movie's infamous
ending. Alas, it never pans out and given Bullet Train's obsession with 2000s cinema it's more likely meant to recall
Snakes on a Plane.
For a long time we've been enviously watching Pitt maintain his boyish
looks but Bullet Train is the first movie where he's showing
his age. At 58, he's the same age James Dean would have been in 1989. Can
you imagine a wrinkly Dean getting cast in the Patrick Swayze role in
Road House? Why are our action stars so old now? I remember how heavily mocked the
007 franchise was for continuing to cast Roger Moore right up to 1985's
A View to a Kill. Moore was Pitt's age in that movie, and it shows. The only thing older
than Bullet Train's leading man are its gags, including the badly-needs-retiring shtick of
two brawlers having their fight momentarily interrupted by an unsuspecting
intruder. Everything about Bullet Train is tired, from Pitt's
"I'm getting too old for this shit" hangdog expression to the constant aping
of a type of movie that ran its course 25 years ago.
Bullet Train does replicate a train journey, by which I mean
you'll probably nod off for 20 minutes and find yourself asking "Are we
there yet?" more than a few times.
