LM23 Rating: Not predictable at all, but beneath the star power of Brad Pitt and Sandra Bullock
All aboard for Brad Pitt and Sandra Bullock
When I first heard Brad Pitt and Sandra Bullock were going to be in a movie together, I didn’t need to hear anything else. It’s a testament to both actors’ star power that it’s been about 30 years since both entered the A list and they’re still as popular as ever. I have to admit that when I first heard that Brad would be an assassin, I thought with the very intense title such as “Bullet Train”, that it would be a serious action crime drama of sorts. And there haven’t been enough of those types of big movies lately or at least with superstars like Brad Pitt and Sandra Bullock as stars.
But when the trailer premiered, it appeared that Bullet Train was going to be more of a dramedy. When mixing with violence, this can be a really hit or miss if not done right. And with a restrictive setting like a train, there’s got to be maximum effectiveness in the dialogue and characters.
You’ll never guess what is happening
Bullet Train is not predictable at all. It may seem predictable, but the script finds escape routes and surprise trap doors to twist and turn its plot into. With a movie like this that leans on the million crazy and quirky characters who can only wind up in the same place by a premeditated reason. I can suspend reality enough for me to accept that all of these people are taking the same train. And numerous violent interactions including murders can happen with no security or even anyone hearing what the heck is going on in this train.
A wannabe throwback to 90’s crime dramas
I’m very sad to report that the characters and dialogue was just too contrived. The movie is so wanting to be like those great 90’s crime films like Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, and The Usual Suspects. These films were noted for featuring dialogue dense characters that talked a lot and talked very fast. The characters also had colorful and fun names like Verbal Kint and Mr. Pink. And a key signature of those crime dramas from the 90’s, the characters themselves were more than just a heavy or criminal. They were “human” in that they waxed poetic about mundane things.
The characters in Bullet Train follow this same blueprint. We got Brad Pitt as “Ladybug”, Joey King as “The Prince”, Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Brian Tyree Henry as “Tangerine and Lemon” respectively, and on and on. Everyone has a cool assassin nickname because assassins are generally treated like the ultimate cool criminal in these movies. They’re not going to be called Harold or Bob.
Ladybug shouldn’t have been such a try hard average Joe
The main assassin we’ve followed onto this Bullet Train in Tokyo is Ladybug. Played by Pitt, Ladybug is a very self-aware assassin who is reassessing his life now that he’s on his way out of the industry. He comes off as an average Joe who happens to be able to kill people when ordered to, but he’s not so cool in that he can easily get run over by a bus if he’s not paying attention and he’s distracted by the smart toilets on the train.
Ladybug is ordered by his handler, Maria Beetle (Sandra Bullock), to get on the train, pick up a briefcase, and then get off the train. Easier said than done. Poor Ladybug’s last mission is quite the doozy as it seems there’s a bunch of other assassins on board who are after the briefcase containing $10 million, but there are also others on board who are there to settle scores.
Too much telling and not enough showing
Bullet Train then spends a lot of time doing slick music video montages of each of these assassin’s backgrounds, so we understand who they are and why they’ve boarded this train. Stories in general are never really good when there’s too much telling and not enough showing.
On top of that, there’s also a lot of messy and gratuitous and borderline obscene violence that’s a cross between Goodfellas and Reservoir Dogs. There’s a lot of blood and lost limbs and a flash of a very explicit and very unnecessary background sex scene in one flashback.
The plot needed to focus more on the mission and less on the colorful characters
All of the loose threads that connected all of the characters on the train were tied up very neatly and in most cases very unexpectedly. Even the two huge surprise cameos didn’t really add any value to the movie beyond it was hilarious to see the two cameos. This was all great, but at the same time, the movie ended with me not caring much about its mission.
Bullet Train was less about securing the briefcase and more about why the heck is everyone riding this one bullet train from Tokyo to Kyoto? The twists and turns were smart, but the main bad guy in the film, the “White Death”, was not as scary as he was built up to be. White Death is no Keyser Soze. He ultimately was just an old guy with long scraggly hair who is more of a built up myth than a real life killing machine.
Brad Pitt and Sandra Bullock deserve another shot at a great film together
Brad Pitt was great but wasted. Whenever he was not on the screen, the movie dragged and you wondered where he was. I know everyone has been going on and on about the performances by Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Brian Tyree Henry, but their characters were too much like the recycled versions of the characters from those movies in the 90’s that I couldn’t get with them.
The “funny” montage where we’re confirming their number of kills was not funny and not imaginative at all. And it’s these funny/ironic bits that I couldn’t get with. The whole Thomas the Tank Engine metaphors was dragged on for way too long and did we need it at all? However, I will say that the bond between the two “twins” was portrayed effectively enough than when one or the other was hurt, you were so sad for them. When Lemon was shot and it appeared he had died, I immediately thought of his brother who was elsewhere on the train and didn’t know what had happened.
I hope Brad Pitt and Sandra Bullock will make another movie together where they are both the lead actors. A rom-com or a drama would be amazing. Bullet Train unfortunately was not up to their standards.
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