All aboard! David Leitch’s Bullet Train comes at you like an ammunition shot from a gun. This bombastic cross between action and comedy is a Tarantino-style visual spectacle.
Set up against a picturesque skyline from Tokyo to Kyoto, Bullet Train provides action fans what films like Crank have provided in the past. Jump cuts, wild camera angles, and non-stop action, this train is carrying it all.
Screenwriter Zak Olkewicz does a fantastic job of adapting Kôtarô Isaka’s novel to the big screen for action feigns to feast on, with some pretty remarkable star power to boot.
In this perfectly cast flick, Brad Pitt, who practically carries the film, plays a hitman with the alias of “Ladybug.” When a snatch-and-grab job on a train turns into a highly orchestrated kill fest after rival assassins discover each other on the same train, Ladybug is left to finish the job with what little luck he has.
Luck is a recurring theme throughout the film. As Ladybug is carrying out his hitman task he stays on the phone with his therapist (Sandra Bullock) in a very unusual yet introspective extended session. The elevated dialogue between these two A-listers provides comedic relief as Ladybug, a trained assassin, is preaching peace and alternatives to violence as carries out some of the most disturbing acts of violence ever seen on-screen.
But we shouldn’t be so quick to write off Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Brian Tyree Henry, the dynamic duo who play “twins” that go by the nicknames Tangerine and Lemon. The two serve as a dynamic duo that provides laughs when their plan collides with Ladybug’s. After all, their job is to deliver the briefcase to the crime boss who goes by the White Death (Michael Shannon) while Ladybug’s job is to take it.
Then we have the groom aka The Wolf (Bad Bunny) who is on his own mission to seek vengeance on the group of assassins who turned his wedding into a Kill Bill-style blood bath.
Joey King also leans into her role exquisitely as an assassin, who is also seeking revenge. Only she is masquerading as an innocent young girl—which as is pointed out in the film, she executes (pun intended) extraordinarily well. She’s got that “it-factor” confidence that really beams through her dainty character’s exterior. Don’t be surprised if she is cast as the villain in the next installment of the James Bond franchise. That’s right. this may be the film that launches her into full-blown stardom.
All in all, Bullet Train is an entertaining and comedic journey. Alas, audience members who find constant fighting on a train to be repetitive may want to want to avoid riding this ride.
Grade: C+