Worth: $14.50
FilmInk rates movies out of $20 — the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth
Cast:
Brad Pitt, Joey King, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Brain Tyree Henry, Andrew Koji, Hiroyuki Sanada, Michael Shannon
Intro:
... well directed, features a superb cast, is chockers with twists and set pieces and is really only interested in delivering a good time ...
You know what used to be cool? Heading down to the local video shop and taking a chance on some random action thriller. Usually egged on by the goateed clerk behind the counter, you’d end up with flawed but engaging flicks like 2 Days in the Valley (1996), The Big Hit (1998), Thursday (1998) or one of a hundred other Tarantino/Guy Ritchie imitating flicks that really hit the spot. In recent times, that spot is either lightly touched by streaming options or – more often – ignored entirely. Which is why a film like Bullet Train is such a welcome experience at the cinema, even if it does feel like a relic from the late 1990s.
Bullet Train is the wild and woolly tale of mindfulness-obsessed, reluctant hitman Ladybug (Brad Pitt). Ol’ mate has to retrieve a briefcase from a bullet train that’s travelling from Tokyo to Kyoto. Simple enough, right? Wrong, because apparently every other bloody hitman is on the damn train and they’re significantly less reluctant than him. What follows is a violent, twisty, chatty romp of a film that introduces us to a host of colourful characters and then spends a good deal of screen time gleefully killing them off in gory, well executed ways.
Bullet Train takes a little too long to leave the station, and like a lot of those ’90s flicks we mentioned earlier, has a few obnoxious habits. Character names burst onto screen with a musical sting when we first meet them, everyone’s as loquacious as a meth head with a thesaurus and the number of storytelling techniques “borrowed” from Quentin Tarantino and Guy Ritchie beggars belief at times. However, once the plot starts rolling along the film finds its feet and becomes something far more interesting. Director David Leitch (Atomic Blonde, Deadpool 2) executes the splattery set pieces with aplomb and enough sense of comic timing to make even the goofier beats (like the backstory for an intimate object) land.
Performances, too, are great, with Brad Pitt in fine form, Joey King superb as the malevolent Prince and the double act of Aaron Taylor-Johnson (Tangerine) and Brian Tyree Henry (Lemon) one of the film’s highlights. There are also a bunch of agreeable and funny cameos that we won’t spoil; suffice to say this is a stacked cast.
Bullet Train is certainly not the second coming of cinema nor will it have you looking at the world through fresh eyes. However, if you’re up for a film that’s well directed, features a superb cast, is chockers with twists and set pieces and is really only interested in delivering a good time, then pretend like we’re a video shop clerk turning you onto something unexpected and hook into the goofy throwback delights that Bullet Train has to offer.
