"Bullet Train:" Last Stop in My Heart
A Love-Hate Relationship with this Movie
This is a beautiful neon-filled Japanese-inspired film with too many famous people to count on my little toes.
It’s sarcastic in a witty, mostly accidental kind of way and the best way to describe this movie is in one word: fun.
It is a fun film and it looked like it was fun to film and be a part of. There is absolutely no logic, just chemistry and lighting and ~vibes~ that make it seem like from production to screen, it was a jolly good time.
I really love that for them. It makes the plot-hole ridden storyline more bearable and even acceptable.
Massive props to the lighting and production design team for recreating a brilliant and vibrant Japanese landscape using iconic pieces and aesthetics of the culture because you could tell this was not the A train in the Bronx.
Everything looked sleek and streamlined, which is a nice contrast to the plot.
We start off with Ladybug (Brad Pitt) who is a recovering assassin and quotes off incorrect one-liners from his therapist much to the chagrin of the other assassins trying to off him. He preaches a sort of 7-Eleven calm that is well-intended but overall poorly placed in a conversation and without much substance to really make you think about your actions.
Ladybug’s job is to retrieve a suitcase for his client, but little does he know that an ungodly number of independent paid assassins and a misguided Japanese man is also on the case. Their stories intertwine and interlock like awkward first-time lovers to showcase a somewhat enjoyable tale that is overall regrettable yet memorable in spite of our best efforts.
So many charismatic characters dot the screen, but we get an inkling of time with them at best, and most if not all of them reach the most likely demise when several assassins accidentally meet on a bullet train in Japan.
Ladybug wants in and out. Scoop the case and jump off at Kyoto. But with his luck as bad as it is, Ladybug gets trapped on this train of death and reconciles (?) with the other assassins while also managing to get on the bad side of the biggest Russian Mafia Lord who violently took over the Japanese Yakuza WITH a perfect amount of Thomas the Tank Engine references.
It’s quite a trip.
Watch it for the shits and giggles, but don’t try to compare it to one of the classics or an MCU movie. Bullet Train recognizes its genre as action comedy and leans into that nonsensical feeling really really well. It’s not trying to reinvent the cinema wheel, but it does have a grand old time playing in it, and I have to give it props for that :D
White Washing
An adaptation of Kotaro Isaka’s novel of the same name, which, based on a hunch and without having read the actual book and only several Good Reads accounts, most of the characters are Japanese, if not all of them.
Which apparently is not as big a problem as we think when we have the excellent representation of the Asian and Asian American populace in media through the amazing (though not conclusive and exclusive) works of Randall Park, Gemma Chan, Henry Golding, Manny Jacinto, and Scarlett Johansson.
The idea of representation and what is white-washing always comes into questions when non-English works are adapted into another medium.
How true should we stay to the adaptation of a work? What creative liberties can we take that will be seen as creative liberties and not as racist prejudice? What story are we trying to tell and do these identities have a significant effect on what we are saying?
[Don’t even get me STARTED on the Rings of Power and white supremacy controversy that has been going on because I will GO OFF. It’s a similar yet completely different take on representation but in a fantasy realm. Riddle me this: in a make-believe world where you can be anything and everything, from an orc to an ogre to an elf, why does it matter what color your skin is?]
Bring that drink to the table and garnish it with the added necessity of marketability and sales and there may be an answer to the white-washing we see. Not a very good answer, but an answer fueled by fear and insecurity nonetheless.
Stuffing a movie with as many popular actors as the credits screen can handle draws in their fanbase along with whoever is even slightly interested in this movie. It’s a tactic to make sure the movie doesn’t flop, but it also recognizes, on some level, that the movie alone cannot stand on its own legs.
Not to be incongruent, but Brad Pitt did an amazing job. As he always does, as his repertoire demands of him. I understand why they cast him and how his audience appeal is already established and desirable. But when are we going to take a step out of that box and try something new? Something that could work or be better or give someone new a fighting chance?
Casting the white— oops, I meant right actor or actress should take precedence over box office appeal so long as they fit with the story, but it seems that Hollywood still has a deep-rooted belief that POC cannot lead big blockbuster films in a way that will break records and draw a crowd.
And to that, I raise them Black Panther, Crazy Rich Asians, Everything Everywhere All At Once, Minari, The Farewell, Get Out.
Affable Assassins
Pitt plays the part of a recovering assassin-gone-to-therapy surprisingly well. He’s skilled and absolutely trained to fight, but now he’s a pacifist. He wants to seek the solution of nonviolence and he has a habit of taking apart guns and hiding them so they cannot be used. Which was oddly gentle considering the gore this movie squeezed in in other ways.
Every other assassin we meet, though it’s only for a handful of minutes or straight story arcs for others, is friendly enough and their dynamics with each other is worthwhile. Some may argue (Me, I am some people) that the ensemble cast is difficult to take care of because of their wildly different goals overlapping and the limited screen time they each get, but boy do they work it.
Every time an assassin comes to punch Ladybug in the face, he tries to offer a pacifistic solution to be met with outright violence and he reacts.
All he really does is react and that makes for an interesting dynamic with every other character. He is so passive in the sense that he doesn’t want to be on this train. He doesn’t want this mission or this goddamn suitcase, but he gets roped in anyways and now he has to survive.
We get moments of calm to break up the high-speed chases and fight sequences, which is necessary for pacing but also establishes character relationships and backstory in meager 5-minute snippets of exposition.
Most of the assassins are affable and silly, though absolutely deadly in design. This makes it easy to root for the side characters, which is in contrast to the singular, action-forward protagonist we’re used to solely rooting for (think John Wick or Liam Neeson in anything).
Some of them, we grow to love. And that’s dangerous in a movie with the premise of “assassins accidentally assembling on public transport.”
Cameos
What really sold me on this movie was all the cameos.
Not the plot, not the cinematography, not the editing.
The cameos had me wide-eyed and laughing my ass off because wow. You weren’t in the trailer? What are you doing here in a one-off scene of randomness?
The cameos are a nice touch of silliness to highlight how well the movie straddles that line of serious action thriller with stupid comedy.
We get Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Joey King, Andrew Koji, and Brian Tyree Henry as main cast, most important people pushing the plot forward.
THEN we get Bad Bunny, Zazie Beetz, Hiroyuki Sanada, Logan Lerman, Karen Fukuhara, MICHAEL SHANNON, Channing Tatum, and Sandra Bullock. Like what in the world? Who decided to have this much of a star-studded cast, and THEN NOT UTILIZE ANY OF IT.
What monster sat there and said, “Let’s just heehee wait no I got an idea, let’s okay let’s just pan to them and leave hoo hoo hee hee.”
Honestly there would have been too many characters to care about at that point, but if you do watch this movie, keep an eye out.
You’ll be plunging into and out of plot holes like some macabre ride at Disneyland, but you’ll definitely enjoy it and whenever the ride comes up for blessed, crisp, refreshing air, you’ll find a cameo like a Hidden Mickey.