Bullet Train
It took around five times for me to finish Bullet Train because it was that bad. Normally I sit through everything. I’m a fan of action comedies, but this was painful. Again, comedy is one of my favorite genres. I usually have to pause scenes to laugh and replay it again. During this movie I only laughed five times during the 2hr 7min runtime.
Lady Bug (Brad Pitt), a Zen contract criminal is assigned to steal a suitcase filled with money off of a bullet train in Tokyo. A simple grab and go job for his first assignment back in the field. Immediately he finds the suitcase, along with five other assassins ready to fight to the death for the suitcase.
As the movie opens it feels like it will be a Tarantino type of action comedy. But, with the poor comedic writing trying too hard to be funny, and boring action scenes it quickly became an inferior Kick-Ass / Deadpool type of movie without the superhero costumes.
For certain assassins we go into their backstories. For the one called The Wolf (Bad Bunny) it felt like it could have been a commercial ad montage for various products including beer. The amount of time it took to develop the wolf’s specific backstory was excessive for how little screentime his character has. It didn’t add anything to the story seeing his entire life and should have been cut down. Despite seeing his backstory his confrontation with Lady Bug feels empty because The Wolf and every assassin aside from Tangerine and Lemon are treated like afterthoughts, making the fight scenes lackluster. Again, with comedy being forced into scenes that become cheesy.
We discover early on that the briefcase everyone is fighting for belongs to The White Death (Michael Shannon). The whole movie is building towards this reveal, and it fell flat. The casting was unimaginative of who could fill that role. He wasn’t funny either.
The 2hr runtime is excessive and exhausting to get through. I felt so relieved when it was finally over. A movie like this should be fun, not a chore.
Despite my negative response to the film. Aaron Taylor-Johnson who plays Tangerine and Brian Tyree Henry who plays Lemon did a great job playing off of one another and fully committing to the script. Their performances helped me to keep going. I look forward to what they do next.
Bullet Train is available to watch on Netflix.