Brad Pitt headlines an A-list cast in Bullet Train, an action-packed, overstuffed, cameo-filled blockbuster that’s surprisingly dull.
Bullet Train feels a bit like Murder On The Orient Express as directed by Guy Ritchie’s cousin. It’s a classic example of a movie with a lot of flair and panache (not to mention an expensive cast) with seemingly no real heart or story to attach it to, so it ends up being this sort of nest of tinsel and free-floating baubles. Initially eye catching, but less interesting the longer you stare at it.
Bullet Train is an action movie set on a train speeding through Japan. Brad Pitt, whom director David Leitch used to stunt double for, plays the main character, of sorts. We meet him as he’s in the midst of an irreverent phone conversation with his faceless handler over his new codename: Ladybug. Why Ladybug? Something about how ladybugs are lucky.
Now, it always strikes me as a bad sign when a movie announces early on that “luck” is going to be a major theme of the story. I don’t have much emotional attachment to the concept of “luck,” and it always feels more like a screenwriter pre-excusing themselves for a dumb thing that’s going to happen later. Don’t blame me! The protagonist is just lucky! Didn’t I tell you that’s his whole thing?
Pitt’s character, it turns out, has been hired to grab a briefcase. That briefcase turns out to be full of ransom money, which is being guarded (not very well, mind you) by two other shadowy operatives, codenamed Lemon and Tangerine, played by Brian Tyree Henry and Aaron Taylor-Johnson, respectively. We also meet them in the midst of an argument about their codenames. “Lemon, you mean like the fruit?” “Yeah, it’s sophisticated.”
Like virtually every other dialogue scene in Bullet Train, the exchange isn’t funny, per se, but it’s delivered in the rough shape and syntax of a joke-like thing (also, of course like the fruit, what the hell else would “lemon” and “tangerine” refer to?).
