Bullet Train

 In 1998 a film was released starring Mark Wahlberg and Lou Diamond Phillips called The Big Hit.  The Big Hit is an action comedy about a group of hitmen who kidnap a young woman and hide her in a house in the suburbs. It's the kind of film best watched with a group if you are in the mood for something offbeat.  Diamond Phillips has a ball playing a manipulative sleeze and Wahlberg plays the straight man who is a terrific killer but whose personal life is a mess (due in large part to having two girlfriends).  The stunts are so outrageous at one pointed I commented that they were breaking so many laws of physics they should be cited.  It is pretty violent and vulgar but I had a good time with it.

My reason for bringing up The Big Hit is Bullet Train reminded me of it, with a touch of Guy Ritchie's British action comedies like Snatch and The Man From Uncle thrown in .  In the summer of 2022 I took my kids to see several movies including Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness, Top Gun: Maverick, Jurassic World: Dominion and Thor: Love and Thunder.  In front of each of these films the trailer for Bullet Train came up and my kids laughed and told me they wanted to see it.  I had a feeling it would be rated R even though we were seeing family friendly trailers.  Most of Brad Pitt's highest profile films are rated R (Thelma and Louise, Legends of the Fall, Seven, Fight Club, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood among them) and my kids are a little young for it so I kept them away.  When I caught it on a plane recently I was glad I made that choice.

Spoilers below:

Bullet Train was directed by David Leitch, who started his career as a stunt performer (including doubling Pitt in some of his most physical films such as Troy, Fight Club, and Mr. and Mrs. Smith) before doing some second unit work on films like Jurassic World and Captain America: Civil War, and then segueing into directing himself starting with the first John Wick.  Other than John Wick his only other director's credit that I have seen is Hobbs and Shaw, the 2019 spinoff of the Fast and Furious films which was entertaining but wildly over the top.  Bullet Train takes a similar approach but has an even crazier premise and characters with names like White Death.  The film is also more contained since most of the action takes place on the train.

Starting ten or more years down the road films made during the Covid-19 pandemic will be identifiable due to a few factors.  Many films made in this period have a lot of scenes in shot in controlled environments with a limited number of characters and few if any crowd scenes since although a film crew can wear masks, the characters cannot onscreen.  The titular train is mostly empty and serves as a setting for different killers who are seeking a case full of money and/or revenge against each other and have some personal connection to the White Death.  As I caught the film in two sittings I lost track of some of the connections but it all leads to a thirty minute closing act in which a lot of the surviving antagonists team up against the big bad at the end in which the train flies off the tracks and into a neighborhood.  Bullet Train lives up to its R rating with strong language, most comically used by the "twins" Lemon and Tangerine played by Brian Tyree Henry and Aaron Taylor Johnson, and excessively violent fights in which people die in blood spattering ways by knives, bullets, decapitation and snake venom.  The fights are the highlight for me, as expected in a film directed by a man with a stunt background, are expertly staged with throws, kicks and props worked in.  

Brad Pitt headlines the film as a P.I. named Ladybug who has a new zen demeanor, refuses to carry a gun, and usually tries to solve his issues peacefully before inevitably showing how cool he is in battle.  This role is a good display of Pitt's charm and I particularly enjoyed his interactions with Henry late in the film.  Hiroyuki Sanada, who was so good in The Last Samauri, gives the film it's gravitas as The Elder, a member of the Yakuza who is the only character taking the whole matter seriously.  Joey King initially makes a good impression as a The Prince, a killer dressed as a schoolgirl who fools nearly everyone into believing she is harmless to then turn the tables on them but the act grows old fast (even Lemon comments on it).  

The film has some clever touches.  Both Lemon and Tangerine, twins despite being of two different races which is never explained, have scenes where the mourn each other's deaths though it later turns out Lemon was only unconscious (Tangerine might have thought to check his pulse).  Tangerine and Ladybug take a break during their extended fight to get a water which Ladybug drinks and Tangerine pays for.  As Lemon and Tangerine count their kills to each other they remember them and each of them turns to camera in the memory marking the number.  There is a gun that is set to explode once the user fires it.  White Death's vendetta against Ladybug is actually a case of mistaken identity since he took someone else's place on the train.  A character named Hornet, played by Zazie Beetz, kills people dressed as a bunny and has a fight with Ladybug which is staged carefully so Ladybug never strikes her.  I liked the concept but if she had had one line of dialogue without the word "Bitch" it would have been better.  

Bullet Train is based on a Japanese novel called Maria Beetle (the name of Sandra Bullock's mostly offscreen character) by Kōtarō Isaka, which had all Japanese characters which has led to claims that the film is whitewashed since there are white and black characters as well as Asian.  I think it is worth noting since Pitt is by far the biggest star in the film though the author did not seem to mind.  Most notable to me is the casting of Michael Shannon as the cruelest of all the characters, White Death is a Yakuza boss but is Russian in this film which may be a nod to political correctness.  Shannon has a blast playing this character who puts everyone on the train and against each other to avenge the death of his wife who most of the characters.  Shannon has wavy hair which matches the big personality and goes utterly against the other roles I associate with him (Knives Out, Revolutionary Road, and Take Shelter).

Bullet Train is an entertaining ride which I enjoyed but would not need to revisit either.  ***