Bullet Train Review: Brad Pitt Shines in a Film that Goes Nowhere Fast

If “Bullet Prepare” is without doubt one of the worst films that Brad Pitt has ever starred in — higher than “Troy,” however a hair in need of “The Mexican” — this massive shiny nothing of a blockbuster can also be a exceptional testomony to the actor’s batting common during the last 30 years, and a few of the finest proof we have now as to why he’s been synonymous with the flicks themselves for that total time. As a result of that’s the factor about film stars, and why the final of them nonetheless matter in a franchise-mad world the place characters are typically extra well-known than the individuals who play them on-screen: They typically get minted in good movies, however they at all times get confirmed in unhealthy ones.

“Bullet Prepare” will not be an excellent movie, however Pitt is having a very palpable quantity of enjoyable in it, and the vitality that radiates off of him as he fights Dangerous Bunny over an explosive briefcase or types his hair with the blow dryer perform of a Japanese rest room is in some way magnetic sufficient to persuade us that we’re having enjoyable, too. Although we normally aren’t. Although this over-cranked story of strangers on a Shinkansen — a late summer season write-off that seems like what would possibly occur if somebody typed “Man Ritchie anime” into DALL-E 2 — tries so exhausting to imitate Pitt’s pure attraction you can really feel the film begging for our bemusement with each frenetic cut-away and gratuitous flashback. Although David Leitch’s cotton-candy-and-flop-sweat adaptation of Kōtarō Isaka’s “MariaBeetle” is the type of Hollywood motion film so senseless and star-driven that it’s nearly not possible to think about the way it began as a ebook.

It’s even tougher to think about the way it began as a ebook about Japanese folks, as “Bullet Prepare” — set alongside the Hayate line railway tracks that run between Tokyo and Kyoto — boasts extra white solid members from “The Misplaced Metropolis” than it does regionally born main characters. I suppose that’s in step with the spirit of Zak Olkewicz’s intricately dumb screenplay, which twists Isaka’s authentic story into against the law saga a few gigantic Russian gangster named “White Demise,” whose hostile takeover of a yakuza crime syndicate in some way explains why a number of of the world’s deadliest assassins have all discovered themselves aboard the identical practice (the identification of the actor taking part in Mr. White Demise is a third-act shock, however the reveal is well worth the wait).



Pitt — codenamed “Ladybug” by an off-screen handler voiced by Sandra Bullock — looks like odd man out. Sporting a humble bucket hat, a raggedy coiffure that’s a number of unhealthy months in need of “Seven Years in Tibet”, and a zen perspective that owes extra to the Dude than it does a contract killer, Ladybug doesn’t seem a lot concerned about homicide. Not anymore. Perhaps he was once a daily Agent 47, however lately he’s extra into killing folks with kindness (“You place peace into the world and also you get peace again,” he tells the voice in his head). It’s simply his traditional unhealthy luck that he was known as to interchange another person for a fast snatch-and-grab job on the final minute, and that just about each different passenger on the bullet practice he boards appears to have an curiosity in procuring the identical briefcase.

Probably the most pleasant of those rivals are a British pair of brothers known as Lemon and Tangerine, their mission-specific nicknames rising extra unbearable each time this film tries to squeeze them for a straightforward snicker (is all of the “fruit” discuss homosexual panic, or does it simply fail to quantity to the rest?). The previous, performed by Brian Tyree Henry, is an outsized child obsessive about Thomas the Tank Engine — a trait that surprisingly traces again to Isaka’s ebook, regardless of typically coming off like a hacky little bit of Hollywood comedy screenwriting. The latter, embodied by a mustachioed Aaron Taylor-Johnson, is a dick-heavy Jason Statham kind who squeezes right into a three-piece swimsuit prefer it’s a muscle tee.

Each actors decide to the saint-like working of elevating this primary Frick and Frack routine into one thing enjoyable and nearly actual (Henry delivers one other frustratingly impressed efficiency in his ongoing quest to squander generational expertise on the likes of “Superintelligence” and “The Lady within the Window”), to the purpose that “Bullet Prepare” is usually capable of muster some real persona out of its pinball machine pacing and neon-lit noise. The remainder of the ensemble is much less useful. Joey King wears skinny as a faux-innocent femme fatale, Andrew Koji can solely grimace and grunt because the Japanese murderer making an attempt to kill her, and Dangerous Bunny — very like Zazie Beetz — is mainly flattened into the wallpaper as soon as the film bleeds him of his character’s persona. Logan Lerman is low-key pleasant as a glorified human prop (millennials by no means actually get the prospect to go full “Weekend at Bernie’s,” and it’s nice to see one in all them take advantage of it), however his efficiency proves typical of a film through which the units do many of the heavy lifting.

“Bullet Prepare” is unashamedly extra animated by fashion than substance — the dialogue units the bar so low that the movie’s snaky plotting begins to really feel spectacular by comparability — however that solely turns into an issue as a result of Leitch struggles to maintain issues trying recent. The motion film aesthete who made “Atomic Blonde” into such an electrical Chilly Battle gut-punch has totally surrendered to the hack-for-hire behind “Deadpool 2” and “Hobbs & Shaw,” and the suave brutality that made Leitch’s 87North Productions seem to be it may be trendy Hollywood’s reply to Hong Kong-style motion has given method to a combined bag of comedian mayhem and a garish mess of explosive CGI setpieces.

A handful of playfully choreographed brawls assist elevate “Bullet Prepare” above the standard (the aforementioned briefcase battle between Pitt and Dangerous Bunny features a few beats that had my viewers wincing aloud), however it by no means feels as if Leitch is utilizing the cramped area of the Shinkansen to the total extent {that a} “John Wick” film would. Confined to an infinite hall of empty practice automobiles which might be all lit to resemble fashionable resort bars, Leitch’s movie is caught in place at 200mph, even despite a non-linear timeline that hopscotches between its many subplots and continually forces its characters to re-evaluate their fates.

The entire thing would possibly derail altogether if not for a way evenly Pitt dances by means of it, munching on the surroundings as if it had been a whirl of cotton sweet. His efficiency is so at peace, even within the face of near-certain dying, that it steadily borders on the dissociative, as if he had been extrapolating a whole character from the acid journey that Cliff Sales space took within the ultimate minutes of “As soon as Upon a Time in Hollywood.” The way in which he resolves a difficult state of affairs involving a venomous snake within the bullet practice lavatory reaches that very same type of blissed out nirvana — it’s a stomach snicker in a film that in any other case struggles for smirks — and the choice to drop in a Criss Angel “Mindfreak” reference for good measure is simply icing on the cake.

It’s like Ladybug doesn’t actually wish to be there, and is set to make it out alive whereas inflicting as little hurt to himself or others as humanly attainable, and Pitt’s tackle taking part in the character appears modeled after the identical method. “Bullet Prepare” could also be going nowhere quick, however Pitt at all times looks like he’s already there, protected within the data that we’ll fortunately watch him smile by means of all of the chaos that crashes round him (together with two standout cameos, one which nails an actor’s star energy, and one other which fully misapprehends it). Pitt’s stardom has by no means been extra apparent, and it shines vivid sufficient right here for every thing else to get misplaced within the glare.

Grade: C

Sony Footage will launch “Bullet Prepare” in theaters on Friday, August 5.

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