Here’s something I got curious about when I saw the trailer—from the director of the first John Wick and Atomic Blonde comes something like looked like, and as it turns out very much is, a blend of Guy Ritchie, Tarantino (specifically Kill Bill) and a dash of Takashi Miike. With a promise of style, action, and snappiness, here’s my quick look at Bullet Train.
Adapted from the novel by Kotaro Isaka, the film focuses on Brad Pitt, fresh from sparring with Bruce Lee in Once Upon A Time in Hollywood, as a crook for hire dispatched to steal a briefcase off the titular Shinkansen. Pitt is thankfully an example of this kind of protagonist done right—as a bit of a schmuck who’s keener to simply avoid trouble, but through darkly comic twists of fate, keeps getting wrapped into a deepening scheme between a cosmopolitan assortment of underworld players as the train makes its journey.
The most memorable ones will be undoubtedly Aaron Taylor Johnson and Brian Tyree Henry as an odd couple of hitmen who, if with a bit more panache than Pitt, attempt to deal with their own plans going off the rails (yes, I can hear you groaning, bite me!). Mixed in between them is a conniving young woman played by Joey King—and stealing the show more often than not for me is Hiroyuki Sanada as a steeled yakuza elder trying to get back in touch with his son (Andrew Koji), yet another sap involved in the mess.
You’ve got other characters who make their splashes—some less so than others. You can tell that this was filmed in part during the pandemic, what with the camera often just focusing on torsos and faces, and other creatively pragmatic uses of framing. One or two are forgettable—others still make their mark, like Michael Shannon as oni mask-obsessed crime boss who serves as the antagonist force to everyone involved. When he gets directly involved in the third act, which is where the Kill Bill vibes start to kick in, that serves as just the right sort of creepy physical presence to mix things up for our climax.
And a good job too—it’s a pretty long film at two and a half hours, and while the pace is nicely done for the first two thirds, by the last I could start to see a few sequences here and there that honestly could’ve been cut. There’s also a couple of running gags that do get worn into the ground—Brian Tyree Henry’s character, for instance, really likes Thomas the Tank Engine for some reason. He makes this abundantly clear through the film. Very, very clear indeed.
Thankfully, there’s enough characters and moments here to enjoy that I was able to get through it fine regardless—from Pitt trying to talk cockney to all the nicely satisfying mayhem at the very end. While it doesn’t quite match its aforementioned inspirations, if you’re in the mood for some exuberant crime comedy with some surprisingly effective genuine moments, Bullet Train’s certainly worth a one-off watch at least.
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