Your enjoyment of Bullet Train will depend heavily on your tolerance of that era of post-Pulp Fiction crime movies featuring quirky criminals and zig-zagging timeliness. Bacon the book, Maria Beetle (published in English as Bullet Train) by Kōtarō Isaka, the film is adapted by Zak Olkewicz and directed by David Leitch, and follows a former assassin now zen smash-and-grabber who is code-named Ladybug (Brad Pitt). His assignment? Retrieve a briefcase on a bullet train. Seems simple enough. Unfortunately, his straightforward mission becomes increasingly complicated as he encounters more colorful assassins and shady characters all with their own missions and motivations, yet all connected by the briefcase.
While there are the obvious comparisons to the early works of Quentin Tarantino, Guy Ritchie, and even Joe Carnahan, the other, slightly more subtle comparison I discovered as I watched the film was John Carpenter’s Big Trouble In Little China. Both are action comedies that lean into an Asian cultural aesthetic and feature clean cut white Hollywood actors as the dopey lead, who – when considering the driving forces of the overall narrative – are not necessarily the main character. Also it pulls from yakuza stories instead of wuxia martial arts films. It’s that mode of story filtered through the quirky and edgy filmmaking of the directors I previously mentioned. If that seems like your jam, this is definitely for you.
I think that style certainly has its place, and can be enjoyable, especially now that it isn’t the dominant type to come out in theaters. Hell, it’s practically rare to see a mid-budget, star-studded, R-rated actioner like this hit multiplexes nowadays, so sure, I’ll take it. While I haven’t loved all his movies, I appreciate the approach that David Leitch has taken to his films, especially in how it’s different from his John Wick counterpart, Chad Stahelski. Leitch is more than willing to go full cartoon, full maximalist. In Bullet Train, a gun can’t simply be slid across the table, it has to be in slow motion, and a wind has to go along with it, sending dollar bills into the air. Love that stuff.
Sometimes the stylistic flourishes do end up working against the film. There are so many unnecessary cutaways and flashbacks that interrupt the flow and momentum of the story. It can often work in the right moment as a gag, a water bottle gets its own flashback at one point, but sometimes it can be overwhelming getting so many backstories. And while the light tone is all well and good, not all the jokes totally land, one assassin code-named Lemon (Brian Tyree Henry) uses any and all opportunity to bring up Thomas The Tank Engine. The banter can also be too much at times, and bring the propulsive pacing to a halt. The humor is hit-and-miss, but I did find myself ultimately engaged by the goofy presentation of it all.
It’s obviously a film that doesn’t take itself seriously, until a moment comes when it wants you to, but I never found those tonal switch-ups to be particularly jarring, in fact, I’d say some of them worked as resonating payoffs to otherwise silly setups. That said, Bullet Train is not a deep film, this is pure sugar for the action crowd. A contained action film with colorful characters played by actors who range from against type to too good for this nonsense bouncing off one another, sometimes literally, to bloody results, and it’s pulling tricks you’ve seen a million times already, but that’s part of why it works. Leitch knows action like the back of his hand, and he definitely delivers here, as the action feels more informed from the likes of Jackie Chan, with fast, zippy choreography that utilizes elements from the environment with a character like Ladybug being confused and baffled by everything going on around him.
I wish I had more to say about Bullet Train, but as comically complicated the plotting can be, the appeal of it is very simple, and the trailer does give you a good idea on what the overall vibe is (though it is way bloodier than you’d expect), so you can see for yourself if that works for you. The actors are all doing good stuff here, Brad Pitt in particular is clearly having a blast. But you also get strong work from Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Joey King, Andrew Koji, Hiroyuki Sanada, and so…so many others. It’s a stacked cast, and everyone’s having fun with the material, even the ones who are playing things more straight. It’s not a very demanding movie, it’s not one that makes you think a whole lot, it’s just doing everything it can to make sure you have a pretty good time, and I definitely had a pretty good time. It’s not necessarily one I will revisit over and over again, but it was just fun seeing a violent and funny and weird action movie on the big screen from the folks over at 87North Productions, even if not all their flicks hit, they’re doing commendable work for mainstream American action filmmaking. I had fun, and if anything about this looks entertaining to you, then you’ll probably have fun too.
Bullet Train is now out in theaters.