Between surprising twists, great action scenes and absurd deaths, Bullet Train only seeks to entertain with its irreverence and its blood.
Bullet Train it is a frenzy of endless action, blood and absurd deaths. Loaded with a cast full of big stars like Brad Pitt, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Brian Tyree Henry, Michael Shannon and even Bad Bunny, its history places us in a japanese bullet train who travels from Tokyo to Morioka, where a series of contract killers with extremely different objectives, but due to “chance of fate” they will have to fight to survive.
Director David Leitch, whom we know best for being behind projects like Deadpool 2, Hobbs & Shaw Y Atomic Blonde, made dumbbell with the producer Kelly McCormick, who in addition to having collaborated with Leitch in the three previous projects, also supervised the film of Nobody with Bob Odenkirk, another story about a broken man seeking revenge in unexpected ways.
As if that were not enough, the story is based on a crazy Japanese novel written by Kotarou Isaka, whose history has been compared in style and form to the manner in which Quentin Tarantino and the Coen Brothers interweave the intricate plots of their characters. Bullet Train tries to capture just that essence while exploiting the popularity of stories like John Wick, and although it doesn’t really manage to achieve the perfect balance, it is a great option for fans of the genre.
The world is crazy, crazy.
Without a doubt, the best of Bullet Train are their characters. Each one with a different style, hobby and problem, their introductions are fast and powerful. Whether it is to explain to us where they come from, what they are looking for and where they are going, Leitch’s edition and the distinctive style of each one of them makes us understand and empathize with all of them in a different way.
However, the great protagonist of the story could be said to be Brad Pitt, a killer who constantly complains about his bad luck and that he has found in Buddhism and meditation a way to follow his morally ambiguous path. He goes by the alias of “Catharine” and he only has to recover a briefcase, but his story soon interweaves with that of the other characters, causing messes of gigantic proportions.
This is, for example, how we know Tangerine (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) and Lemon (Brian Tyree Henry), two assassins who must escort the son of a mob boss to safety. It’s over there too Kimura (Andrew Koji), a man seeking revenge after they tried to kill his son. Y The Prince (Joey King) is a girl who can seem like she doesn’t break a plate, until she does.
The action scenes and the surprising twists are enough for us to connect with each of these protagonists, and the cameos that suddenly make big stars They are also very effective and funny. Still, none of his stories are explored in great depth and his origin only serves to give him more. punch to the absurd deaths that the tape presents, although that creates ironic moments They are also extremely funny.
Karma is a daughter of…?
Although the way in which the lives of these curious characters are connected can remind us a lot of pulpfiction, actually has a slightly different concept about karma, destiny and the so-called “butterfly effect”. ladybug he mentions it a lot and seems to blame everything that goes wrong on chance, but throughout the film we realize that Bullet Train propose something different.
Somehow, all characters must face the consequences of their decisions. Whether because of a small action they did without thinking or because their violent nature made them act as they did: the deaths are full of irony because they show us exactly how they got to that point in their life, and only those who are most aware of that earn the right to fight, or survive.
This gives another dimension to the story and does make the deaths and action scenes have emotional weight. But it also proposes that, in the end, destiny and karma are not only “mystical things” that dominate every detail of our lives, but it is our actions that put us in specific paths, with specific people, and those that cause specific consequences.
Everything very nice, but…
Although his characters and how they relate to ideas like fate and karma are very well thought out, actually Bullet Train something is missing emotional cohesion. Far from feeling bad or surprised by their deaths, there really isn’t any engine that guides the story, although it seems that it seeks that the characters of Brad Pitt and Andrew Koji be the moral axes and whose outcome we should be more interested in.
However, the film does not seek to analyze in depth the weak psyche of its violent participants and what leads them to commit heinous acts, as in John Wick or Nobody, although at times it seems that he asks us to try to understand his protagonists in greater depth. Nor does it reach the irreverence defined by the nihilism and despair of Deadpool, and since some characters are just there to have funny deaths, it can feel like that tape really it doesn’t have to tell us anything beyond the spectacle of blood and violence.
What to expect from Bullet Train?
This can get tiresome somewhere in the tape, particularly towards the end. Mainly because the logic behind the train seats it is not as well defined and the resolution of some loose ends is not as effective.
But is that really so bad? the film critic Pauline Kael wrote an essay titled “Garbage, Art and The Movies”, where he talks about exactly how consume “bad” art or that it has no pretensions beyond being a show, in reality it brings us closer to art and makes us more receptive to other types of proposals or ideas.
Since in the end, no matter how “bad” an artistic piece is, it is a proposal that can inspire the audience to look for something else when approaching art media.
Bullet Train is a crazy and entertaining proposal, that despite not offering much in emotional terms, its agile structure, its turns and cameos make it a good option for lovers of the gun-fu.
What do cinephiles and cinephiles think? Are you waiting for Bullet Train?
Source: Fueradefoco
