Riot’s Movie Reviews: Bullet Train
Senseless violence, belly laughing comedy, and Hiroyuki Sanada all wrapped up and delivered on a Japanese bullet train? Oh h*** yes, please! Even if I hadn’t spent three and half months living in Japan on a study abroad program, Bullet Train was sure to be a gift like no other for a guy like me. (That quickly summarizes my pre-viewing biases btw). Directed by David Leitch and featuring an all-star cast, Bullet Train kicks off with varying degrees of dry and silly humor, switches on the violence, and then never stops, in the wildest cinematic ride that I have seen since Kill Bill I+II.
The premise is simple enough: a reformed (ish) assassin, Ladybug (Brad Pitt) is sent into a Japanese bullet train to retrieve a briefcase. But what should have been a simple snatch-and-grab mission quickly devolves into an all-out war of assassins, whose interweaving individual stories are methodically unraveled to reveal what is really going on behind the scenes. Bullet Train takes on a daunting task of blending unabashed violence with a legitimate storyline, one that isn’t lost in all the blood. Now, from what I’ve read of other reviews so far, many couldn’t get past the violence enough to see the story. One of the biggest pitfalls of the film is that there is little to no character development and there is nothing remotely relatable about the majority of them. (A Japanese father, Kimura (Andrew Koji) is about as close as you get to a relatable story). The motivations of each killer are often messy and much of the dialogue serves as the method of exposition, a factor that appears to be a big turn off to many viewers. (Which seems surprising to me, considering the effectiveness of this method in Guy Ritchie films). To this, I have two things to counter with: 1) if you saw the trailers to this film and still expected a series of emotionally complex characters, you were surely kidding yourself, and 2) the film is an adaptation of a novel, using long cuts of dialogue as the storytelling method often serves as the only medium to fit everything in. Those points out of the way, it certainly felt like they crammed way too much into a two-hour movie, yet it’s not a feeling that lingers when you leave the theater. The action sequences, though excessively violent in multiple spots, are incredibly well choreographed and ingenious for the setting. Physical space in Japan is a privilege and if you think some of Hollywood’s depictions of Japan look pretty small, in reality it’s even smaller than you’re imagining. That being said, it isn’t nitpicky to say the events of the story made the train appear/seem like it was 50 miles long, something I can assure you isn’t a real thing for Japanese shinkansen.
I’ve also seen complaints about Bullet Train being another perpetrator to Hollywood’s “white washing” of a Japanese story/culture. Without getting too far into how incessantly tired this argument is, I’ll offer only one counter point: are you a fan of subtitles? As a longtime consumer of anime, I’ve long been embroiled in the “sub vs. dub” argument, listening to people bemoan about how they don’t “like to read” when they watch a film/show. Bullet Train has some subtitled dialogue, but I wonder if the same people complaining about race swapping would be willing to sit through a two-hour film, being “forced to read” (oh heaven forbid) every single piece of dialogue and potentially missing any of the exceptional action sequences that Bullet Train has to offer. I’ll only concede one point to this argument, being that the actor revealed to be “The White Death” was fairly disappointing; in performance and physical appearance. The people behind the film were clearly looking to internationalize a good story and I think they did their best, continuing arguments or letting this get to you is a waste of time. And with all of that being said, I don’t think you could have asked for better performances from this cast. (A very small exception I think goes to The Hornet (Zazie Beetz) who had a wickedly awesome role that was ruined by a particular catch phrase). Brad Pitt, as good as he was, didn’t have anything more to offer than what he’s already done in one of my all-time favorite films, Mr. and Mrs. Smith; it was almost literally the same character and I was totally fine with that. But major gold stars go to Aaron Taylor-Johnson (Tangerine) and Bryan Tyree Henry (Lemon) who played “twin” brothers and stole the show with their foul-mouthed cockney accents and ridiculously hilarious dialogue. They were the only characters that were given the opportunity to really express some range and they definitely didn’t let the audience down.
I was wondering if any film was going to knock Top Gun: Maverick off the top spot as my favorite movie of the year thus far and I would have to say Bullet Train certainly came close. The viewing carried with it the unique effect of being able to switch your mind off and simply enjoy the action while simultaneously keeping you involved with the unraveling story and big reveals. I mentioned multiple times that the violence was abundant and intense but it was extremely well tempered by the humor and often silly ways the events of the story unfolded. Does that make it excusable? Perhaps not. I think there is an argument that today’s television and movies are really trying hard to push the limits of violence in its content but that argument has likely been made every year since the dawn of film making. Certainly it can be justified if it is purposeful and Bullet Train most definitely has little purpose other than pure entertainment. Theabsurdity of the violence is only matched by the obscene notion that these assassins could have even remotely gotten away with half the things they do while on public transport. (This is most certainly the biggest plot hole of the entire film; when you see it and how they try to explain it away, you’ll understand). But much like a real bullet train, this movie was a h*** of a ride and I will definitely be watching it again.
Riot’s Rating: 9.5/10
*PARENTS, DON’T LET YOUR KIDS SEE THIS FILM
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