There’s a generational cycle in cinema which is fairly invariable: Quentin Tarantino has famously spent his career riffing on the exploitation movies of his 1970s youth, and now Bullet Train Screenwriter Zak Olkewicz is riffing on Tarantino and Guy Ritchie, presumably equally formative experiences for a kid born in 1983.
There is nothing in Bullet Train to invest in emotionally, nor did I find it especially funny or thrilling.
It makes for a very talky journey, far from the non-stop thrill ride promised in the title, and only slightly briefer than the actual bullet train ride between the cities in question (you can make the trip in two hours and 15 minutes, according to toGoogle).
Moreover, most of the action has to unfold without the driver or the civilian passengers getting too suspicious, and thus has to happen in short, sharp, close-up bursts, rather than the flowing cadenzas of John Wick (which Leitch co-directed – still his career high point).
That Thomas the Tank Engine thing, by the way: it isn’t a one-off gag, it’s the primary, defining trait of Henry’s character, as if Samuel L. Jackson spent all his screen time in pulp fiction talking about the pig from Green Acres.
Quirks of this variety are meant to contrast with the cartoonish ruthlessness all the characters share, to the point where the decent sorts are the ones who aren’t literally pushing children off rooftops (a misdeed performed by a demure schoolgirl villainess, played by The Kissing Booth star Joey King in a baby-pink coat).
The trouble is that actual Japanese filmmakers are in a different league with this sort of stuff: Leitch is in no position to crank up the perversity and nihilism to match, say, Sion Sono, though he may well have seen a few Sono films in his time.
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There is nothing in Bullet Train to invest in emotionally, nor did I find it especially funny or thrilling. But I’m prepared to give Leitch and company a few points for trying something offbeat enough that by current Hollywood standards it practically qualifies as art for art’s sake.
It must have been Pitt’s enthusiasm that got it financed; Perhaps it reminded him of his 1990s glory days, when he must have spent a fair amount of time between projects leafing through screenplays about goofy hitmen.