Film Review: ‘Bullet Train’: High-Speed Tarantino-Wannabe Trainwreck

R | 2h 7m | Action, Thriller, Comedy | August 5, 2022

What do you call a high-speed Japanese train full of assassins with guns (and bullets)? A bullet train. Yuk-yuk.

There are lots of action movies that do the fun roller coaster ride without requiring the audience to think too much. But then there are ones so massively stupid they don’t fall into the guilty-pleasure category, but the “I feel guilt and shame I didn’t do enough research and bought a ticket to this clod-hopping waste of time” category. This is why the job of film critic exists—as a service so you can avoid experiencing the latter category’s crippling effect.

What Happens on the Bullet Train

Ladybug (Brad Pitt, C) on the phone with his handler in "Bullet Train." (Columbia Pictures/Sony Pictures Releasing).

The 2010 novel “Maria Beetle” by Kotaro Isaka provides the following premise: Brad Pitt plays a mercenary, call-sign “Ladybug” (for good luck, maybe?), hired to facilitate various types of shady outcomes. In other words, he’s an assassin, but we meet him as he’s rejoining the fray following a stint of therapy and, you know, finding himself, and so Pitt plays Ladybug sort of like a puppy that chewed up a couple of self-help books: He occasionally coughs up bland tidbits of personal growth wisdom.

His first job back is supposed to be easy; just abscond with a metal briefcase on a Kyoto-bound bullet train. But despite his lucky code name, our Ladybug is not lucky; turns out the whole train is packed with deadly mercenaries, armed to the teeth with firearms, swords, poisons, and even grudges. None of them get along. It’s supposed to be funny, and Tarantino-esque, but it’s just not.

Is it perhaps a spoof? It doesn’t function as a spoof because it’s a yawn-fest. If it was actually funny, maybe. It doesn’t know what it wants to be. Or maybe it knows it wants to be Tarantino, but everyone involved failed miserably in that endeavor.

Assassin List

The foremost featured train assassins are a cockney-accented British team of two: Lemon (Brian Tyree Henry) and Tangerine (Aaron Taylor-Johnson). The actually British Taylor-Johnson wears dapper suits with a ‘70’s ‘stache, looking like he wandered in from the set of the “Kingsman” movies. The American Henry rocks a silver-frosted ’fro and has a curious weltanschauung; he interprets the world via the children’s book series “Thomas the Tank Engine,” using it as a sort of alternative Tarot card or zodiac system, whereby a person’s personality traits can be revealed. He likes to press little decals of the various types of trains on people’s faces to label them. 

Lemon (Brian Tyree Henry, L) and Tangerine (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) are two cockney-accented killers in "Bullet Train." (Columbia Pictures/Sony Pictures Releasing).

Next up is Prince (Joey King), a schoolgirl who just might be an innocent bystander. But as we know from Quentin Tarantino’s “Kill Bill: Volume 1,” you just can’t allow yourself to trust schoolgirls; they’re very dangerous. There’s also Wolf (Benito A Martinez Ocasio also known as Bad Bunny), a heartbroken hitman looking for revenge.

Prince (Joey King) is a baby-faced killer in "Bullet Train." (Columbia Pictures/Sony Pictures Releasing).

In addition to these, there are plenty of unexpected appearances from familiar faces; some are cameos meant for lukewarm throwaway jokes, while others are somewhat more central.

Should You Buy a Ticket to This Movie?

Um, no. This film will put you into a glassy-eyed stupor via cloddish plotting, wannabe Tarantino hit-man dialog. Lemon and Tangerine are sort of a poor man’s version of hit-men Jules (Samuel L. Jackson) and Vincent (John Travolta) in “Pulp Fiction”  and their mundane discussions about things like McDonald’s quarter pounders with cheese between hits.

And then there’s the film’s main gimmick—the train setting. There are good films that show how to make use of the confined space of a train to their advantage like “Train to Busan” and “Snowpiercer.”

Tangerine (Aaron Taylor-Johnson, L) has a go at Ladybug (Brad Pitt), in "Bullet Train." (Columbia Pictures/Sony Pictures Releasing)

Inventive instances of close-quarters hand-to-hand combat on public transportation abound. But if all the fighting takes place in a train carriage, there are only so many combinations and permutations of surprising situations you can come up with, no matter how many katana swords and pit vipers you throw in there to spice things up. Remember “Snakes on a Plane?” This is snakes on a train.

Ladybug (Brad Pitt, L) defends himself against Wolf (Bad Bunny), in "Bullet Train." (Columbia Pictures/Sony Pictures Releasing).

Lastly, tonally “Bullet Train” is as smugly pleased with itself as Napoleon Dynamite wearing his sweet brown suit and moon boots to the prom, and the main reason for this cloying self-satisfaction is Pitt. There might just be a school of thought out there that would argue that Pitt is the film’s raison d‘être. There’s not really any time, ever, that Brad Pitt has not been likeable, but he’s also definitely to blame for this mess. His celebrity, and especially his coming off a turn as a bodyguard who beats up Bruce Lee in Tarantino’s “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” is what gave this project the green light in the first place. You’d think, with his sense of integrity, being onboard “Bullet Train” would have upped the quality control, but not even the presence of action master Antoine Fuqua, here in a producer capacity, could keep “Bullet Train” from going off the rails.

Which is somehow crazy. Because in addition to quality powerhouses Pitt and Fuqua, you’ve got David Leitch, the director, a veteran stunt coordinator. Leitch’s work on the original “John Wick” and “Atomic Blonde” would lead one to believe that “Bullet Train” could be similarly kinetic, but no. Whenever fights happen, the film will dilute it with another flaccid joke, so each battle ends up being more about hollow slapstick than well-crafted stunts, with none of it memorable.

Kayda Izumi Concession Girl (Karen Fukuhara) takes a jab at Ladybug (Brad Pitt) in "Bullet Train." (Columbia Pictures/Sony Pictures Releasing).

It’s supposed to be Tarantino-esque, and cute, and Antoine Fuqua-riveting-action-y, and hilarious, but it’s just none of the above.

Miss this train.

Movie poster for "Bullet Train."

‘Bullet Train’ Director: David Leitch Starring: Brad Pitt, Brian Tyree Henry, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Joey King, Sandra Bullock, Michael Shannon, Bad Bunny, Andrew Koji MPAA Rating: R Running Time: 2 hours, 7 minutes Release Date: Aug. 5, 2022 Rating: 1.5 stars out of 5