Movie Review: Bullet Train
I went into Bullet Train fairly blind—I knew Brad Pitt was in it, but didn't know about the A-listers in the supporting cast, and I knew it took place upon a train in Japan. What I didn't know, however, was that about 50-75% of the movie takes place on the train (and the rest is told in flashbacks), which made for a very compelling film.
We are introduced to the characters in this film via codenames, as a good portion of them are assassins/spies. "Ladybug" (Pitt) takes a last-minute job from a colleague; his assignment is to board the bullet train, look for a suitcase with a train sticker on it, grab the suitcase, and depart the train. What he doesn't know, however, is that there are other assassins there that will do anything to prevent this, including "Tangerine" (an unrecognizable Aaron Taylor-Johnson) and his partner "Lemon" (Brian Tyree Henry); "Prince" (Joey King), who has her own agenda; "Wolf" (rapper Bad Bunny); and a slew of others.
To say any more would be giving away spoilers, and also doing a disservice to you, my readers, as this movie was WILD and should be experienced spoiler-free. It definitely reminded me of Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill, with a dash of The Commuter, with Liam Neeson (2018) which also took place almost entirely on a train. At any given moment, there are approximately 3+ storylines going on, too, managing to tie them together neatly at the end, which definitely was impressive.
I highly recommend this movie, unless you're sensitive to blood—similar to Kill Bill, it has a lot of blood and violence throughout, so in that case you may want to skip. However, since I went in mostly blind, I wasn't expecting it to be more like an "Americanized Japanese action film," as one person called it, and it was a ton of fun. There are also three to four cameos to look out for, too; they're listed on IMDb if you want spoilers, but I find it's always better to be surprised. There's also one mid-credits scene to stay for, shortly after the credits start.
Bullet Train is in theaters this Friday, August 5th, and is rated R with a runtime of 2 hours and 6 minutes. 4.5/5 stars.
