OUT NOW: Bullet Train

 Ladybug (Brad Pitt), a veteran mercenary, has a job to lift a briefcase off a bullet train.

The only problem is that there are several other parties on the train who are also interested in the contents of said briefcase.

Cue mayhem. 

Based on the novel by Kōtarō Isaka, Bullet Train is a movie I should love.

It is a closed-room scenario featuring a fun cast. Count me in.

Bullet Train is the third solo effort from director David Leitch. Leitch started out as the co-director of John Wick, with Chad Stahelski.

While Stahelski has stuck with the Wick franchise, Leitch has pursued a more varied slate of films. 

Bullet Train feels like a stylistic continuation of his solo debut Atomic Blonde, particularly in its use of retro styling and needle drops (here it is seventies disco).

Atomic Blonde has many virtues, but I found its eighties styling somewhat unnecessary, while Charlize Theron and some strong action sequences were submerged in a confusing, overcomplicated script. 

Bullet Train is a more successful application of style, and a far more enjoyable film than Atomic Blonde, but like his other film, Deadpool 2, it also seems to have more story than necessary. 

Despite an interesting theme, I found the movie overlong and - in its flashback structure - a bit clunky. There is no eureka moment where it comes together.

The movie does not quite work but it benefits from a genuine star at the centre.

Brad Pitt is perfect as a fish out of water, both hyper-competent and goofy.

A cold fish trying to get in touch with his feelings, he is both too self-obsessed to gauge other people, but also paranoid that danger is around every corner.

He is so funny he lifts the movie around him. When he is not in the scene, the energy level dips.

And with a large cast, this movie has a lot of scenes without Pitt.

The big problem with Bullet Train is that the movie is two hours and six minutes long when it should have been 90 minutes long.

Part of the reason is that there is little about the additional scenes that feel original, or add that much to the movie’s suspense.  

There are so many characters and we spend an inordinate amount of time with all of them, covering their various individual plots. 

Watching the early scenes of characters gathering and talking (lots of talking!), I was getting flashbacks of Smokin’ Aces and all the post-Tarantino crime flicks of the noughties. When the characters start arguing over the specifics of The Thomas The Tank Engine, it feels like a photocopy of a photocopy.

While a certain level of audience knowledge can help generate suspense - a gun wired to explode and a poisonous snake add some level of tension - but we are given so much information the movie loses momentum. 

The film is also terrified of losing the audience so we get multiple flashbacks of key moments from earlier.

By the end of the movie, I was more exhausted than exhilarated.

Aside from Pitt, the cast are an embarrassment of riches - some of which feel wasted.

Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Brian Tyree Henry have a good rapport as brother assassins, although they suffer from the lion share of po-mo dialogue. It takes a late-in-the-day flashback to give them any kind of pathos, which just reinforces how shoddy the story-telling is.

Zazie Beetz is great in Atlanta, but she seems to be stuck in supporting roles on the big screen. I like that she keeps popping up in action movies - but when is she going to get a good part?

Her role could have been played by anybody.

The same goes for Karen Fukuhara, who appears as a train attendant.

Andrew Koshi and Hiroyuki Sanada are fine actors with legitimate martial arts skills - but they are stuck with a po-faced storyline that feels too weighty for this movie.

I may be being a little too critical, but there is not much more to say.

This movie features a great performance from a genuine movie star, some gorgeous production design and solid action. But it would benefit from a more disciplined script and some judicious editing.