SK: Trains— if there’s one thing we can all agree on, it’s that they’re great. They go fast, but there’s a dignity to sitting across from someone on a train, drinking a brandy, or perhaps smoking a cigar — one can luxuriate in the journey regardless of the destination. Cinema has certainly had an obsessive relationship with trains — perhaps because trains offer the perfect scenario to constrain and develop a bunch of characters, while offering a visual, topographic metaphor for the film’s narrative arc. Our finest Western examples are films like Stranger on a Train and Murder on the Orient Express — films ostensibly about hidden motivations, betrayals, and revenge. But recently we’ve seen significant contributions from Asian cinema with energetic films like Snowpiercer and Train to Busan, more stylised and concerned with macro ideas about social class and inequality. John, today we’re talking about new film Bullet Train directed by David Leitch based off the Japanese novel Maria Beetle by Kōtarō Isaka. To me, it’s a bit of a marriage of both styles of train movie. So, what did you think?

JM: I agree —Bullet Train takes the classic “strangers on a train” setup and marries it with a lot of extravagant action and neon colouring. To be perfectly honest – and at risk of appearing slow – I found the plot of this film a little hard to follow, but essentially it deals with a group of assassins on a train, all with conflicting objectives surrounding a briefcase full of money and the kidnapped son of a Russian crime boss, the White Death. There is Brad Pitt‘s Ladybug, the nominal protagonist; Tangerine and Lemon (Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Brian Tyree Henry), a pair of quirky British hit men, one of whom is obsessed with Thomas the Tank Engine; the Prince (Joey King), an innocent-seeming young woman who seems to have set everything in motion … I’m not going to list them all. Basically, they bamboozle and try to kill each other over the course of the movie’s two-hour runtime.

As an action movie, first and foremost, I thought the action in this was pretty good. The fight scenes were varied and had a bit of impact, even if sometimes they leaned a little bit too hard on the comedic elements. What did you think?

SK: Well, broadly I have the same issue with Bullet Train as I have with a lot of the new post-modern “wink wink” films that have dominated the action genre in recent years (including Deadpool 2, also directed by Leitch). Namely, that when the action and story are played so strongly for laughs, it’s very hard to keep up the suspense. The stakes in this film are pretty gosh-darn low, right? Brad Pitt’s character basically provides meta commentary throughout all his violent encounters, wisecracking about the absurdity of the situations he’s faced with. And the violence is so OTT that it too tends to break the fourth wall. The result is a film that sets out to push your buttons but really ends up being kind of … safe. In my view, the Deadpool films suffer from the same identity crisis; unable to take the risk of being genuinely funny or genuinely thrilling, they result in a defensive style of filmmaking that suits the length of a trailer rather than a feature film. Maybe that’s why all these films have such amusing trailers?

I can feel myself slipping into a rant here, but gee whiz, why is there always that sequence in these types of films of one or two characters shooting about 20 guys in slow motion set to scabrous punk music (looking at you Deadpool, King’s Man, Kick-Ass, anything made by Zack Snyder, etc.). And why is it now mandatory to have tough guys talking about pop culture? These ideas are unoriginal now. The characters in Bullet Train seem ripped from the worlds of Tarantino, Guy Ritchie or Martin McDonagh; violent objectives with puerile preoccupations. Take the cockney hitman Lemon (Henry) who  — as you say — is obsessed with Thomas the Tank Engine, and brings it up repeatedly throughout the film. Pardon my French, but it’s a bit fucking laboured, no?

JM: Absolutely. One thing I will say is that, even though none of the characters are particularly fresh or interesting, all of the performances were pretty good. I think they enlivened some pretty weak material. And there are a few funny moments. But I would say that not only do most of the jokes fail to land, they’re so derivative that they build up a general sense of listlessness which permeates the whole movie. The film is trying to be a riot of non-stop comedy and action but there’s something enervating about the whole experience. I really dislike this trend in Hollywood movies of nihilistic violence being played for laughs. I honestly don’t know how, as an audience member, you’re expected to react. It doesn’t succeed as slapstick, and it doesn’t work on any other level either. What’s particularly galling is that these movies, in true Hollywood fashion, still try to inject some mawkish sentimentality in the final act.

And I know I say this in every review, but seriously – this film did not need to be two hours long. The film picks up a little momentum around the midpoint, but the ending is really a slog. The previous 90 minutes is so unrestrained that the film can only pile on more and more numbing violence in an attempt to maintain interest.

But look, the film did have its moments. I did laugh a few times, and some of the action had a bit of energy to it. Any final thoughts?

SK: OK. Look, I think Bullet Train is a perfectly serviceable experience, designed to entertain mass audiences but unlikely to develop the cult following of its stylistic forebears. It feels more like the filmmakers stitched together their favourite scenes from Kill Bill, Seven Psychopaths and Lock, Stock to make a film that isn’t a patch on any of them. But still, they’re good films to draw on and broadly this is an enjoyable enough slice of pulpy cinema. I just wish they’d pumped the film’s $90 million budget into a few more rewrites instead of the gratuitous action scenes and slow-motion sequences. I don’t want to be the guy that brings Lethal Weapon into every review, but that said, that remains a good example of a film that balanced its laughs with genuine stakes that the audience cares about. Bullet Train, by being so wed to its self-referential winking and stylistic excess, ultimately comes off feeling like hot air, like an extravagant puffery. But, you know what, it’s so damn loud and chaotic that a lot of viewers might just not notice. 6/10

 JM: I think it’s perfectly reasonable to bring Lethal Weapon into every review! I will confess that I thought the Tangerine-Lemon story had a little bit of pathos, but I’m a sucker for a brother subplot. Because the film successfully played on that aspect of my psyche, I liked it more than I would have otherwise. I would recommend this film for a hangover. 6/10

 

Bullet Train is currently playing in cinemas.