Bullet Train review: Brad Pitt’s action-thriller is gassy, derivative & overstylised

Is it just me, or these days each time Ryan Reynolds breaks the fourth wall, the temperature suddenly spikes inside the theatre and some of our boiling rage spills over? Just me? Cool. Reynolds, who revived his flailing career with Deadpool (2015), where he pummelled the concept of a ‘meta’ superhero so densely that the premise went from being fertile to bone-dry in the span of two films (by the end of Deadpool 2, I was exhausted by the audacity of these feature-length gags). Also directed by David Leitch, whose directorial debut set the ball rolling for one of the most loved (and lucrative) franchises in the world today – the John Wick films – he injected a tongue-in-cheek economy to the modern action film. No reference was too obscure, plots could be whimsically thin, characters could be types, and films could rely on cliches that could be upended in interesting ways. These quirky, lithe action films were a welcome change from the self-serious, unnecessarily opulent summer “blockbusters” (starring the likes of Gerard Butler or Channing Tatum). We’ve seen many such films since like Extraction (2020) or The Gray Man (2022) – which seem to be winking at the audience with a banal plot and trying to compensate with extensively-choreographed action. But, it seems like we’ve reached near the end of the road with these movies. In David Leitch’s latest directorial venture Bullet Train, he doesn’t try to fix an approach that’s held him in good stead till now. But to paraphrase an old adage, what’s not broken doesn’t mean it can be recycled till eternity. Based on Kotaro Isaka’s 2010 novel, Leitch’s film tries to be a light-footed entertainer about the world’s deadliest assassins being on board a train between Tokyo and Kyoto, with conflicting missions, resulting in a screwball comedy with spectacular action sequences. What could have been a lean action-comedy tends to become more gassy as the film goes on. The film’s casting is full of interesting choices, but after a while the film seems to become lost in its own puzzle. A “reformed” assassin codenamed Ladybug ( Brad Pitt) – who claims to have gotten a fresh perspective on life after starting therapy – is handed an easy pick-up job. It’s an easy joke Pitt seems to be making on himself, considering how he’s been on a self-improvement journey in the last few years. There’s a nice, loose energy to Pitt, who seems almost grateful and at the same time relishing every second of his screen time, flashing that superstar smile and going about his role with utmost ease. Ladybug has a simple task – he needs to enter the eponymous train, find a silver briefcase, pick it up and exit the train before the train reaches Kyoto. Easy peasy. Except it never is with Ladybug, who claims to have the world’s worst luck with people dying around him, even when he’s not actively trying to kill them. Pitt seems kicked about having fun in his part, surrounded by an equally looney, and motivated bunch of actors. Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Brian Tyree Henry star as “the twins” – code named Tangerine and Lemon respectively. The brothers’ banter is reminiscent of early Guy Ritchie movies, which in turn seemed obviously inspired from Tarantino’s early work — given the character quirks and non-linear chain of events. Leitch seems to be dressing up those 90s capers with neon lights and his own brand of action that relies heavily on swift hands and faster minds. The twins are carrying the case Ladybug has been tasked to pick up, which belongs to a mythical gangster called White Russian (a cameo worth sticking around for). They are entrusted to deliver the case along with the gangster’s son ( Logan Lerman), who is waiting at Kyoto station. Meanwhile, a Mexican hitman, an assassin ( Joey King) dressed like an innocent-seeming British teenager, a venomous snake and a couple of cameos later (as fellow assassins or passengers), the film begins to resemble the chaos of a Priyadarshan caper from the 2000s. There’s a lot of cross-cultural humour mined over as members of the Japanese underworld, British hitmen, American psychopaths – all have a go at Pitt’s character, preventing him from exiting the train. At one point, Pitt seems to be on seventh heaven after discovering a smart toilet, almost as if he were still in character as Cliff Booth on an acid trip from the final minutes of Once Upon A Time In… Hollywood (2019). Luck, fate is a recurring motif in the film that doesn’t come to fruition in any profound manner, as one might imagine in Martin McDonagh’s Seven Psychopaths (2012) – where vivid visuals of an Asian hitman is realised with an unexpectedly sombre conclusion. However, the appearance of the White Russian might be well worth the wait. It’s a singularly great cameo by a great actor, who knows how to maximise his screen time worth minutes. The rest of it is stylised and derivative to a fault. The comedy is only potent enough to draw out the occasional grin. As the train goes off the rails (metaphorically and literally) towards the end, one almost hopes for the well-rounded cast to be given a movie that does better than to mistake volume for quality. Nothing affects Brad Pitt’s stardom though, he seems to be on his own trip. Bullet Train will release in cinemas on 4th August

Tatsam Mukherjee has been working as a film journalist since 2016. He is based out of Delhi NCR. Read all the  Latest News,  Trending News,  Cricket News,  Bollywood News,  India News and  Entertainment News here. Follow us on  Facebook,  Twitter and  Instagram.