Bullet Train (2022)

Rated R for a LOT of language and a lot of violence.  It's weird, because for a film centered around the idea of ultra-death and violence, the gore doesn't seem exploitative. Maybe that's to our detriment, considering that we shrug off a lot of death in this movie.  But it is over-the-top gore without trying to gross you out.  

DIRECTOR:  David Leitch

Shut up.  I was not ready to like this movie so much. I was so ready to throw it into the ash pile of every other too-cool-for-reality Quentin Tarantino knock offs.  But then, I come out of this movie having almost no notes.  You want to know my one note?  Train crashes totally kill everyone on board. Okay, two notes:  bullets make loud noises that would garner attention.  But if you really employ suspension of disbelief, man alive this movie really works.

I will be honest, as I tend to be on this blog.  If I had my druthers, I would be reading right now.  I have less than 100 pages left of a book that took me too long to read.  But I also know that if I don't write this before the weekend, it's going to be a long time until I get to it.  If I sound snarky, be aware that this isn't a reflection of the movie.  I really liked this movie.  The thing is, I absolutely shouldn't.  This is a movie absolutely terrified about being vulnerable.  Then why does it work when it has no right to work?  Two main reasons and a whole lot of little reasons.  The first thing is a consistent tone.  The movie never really tries diverting from its mission statement of nonstop adrenaline coupled with humor.  Is there going to be a really serious scene?  Not really.  Sure, there's parts that drive the plot forward and give characters motivations for being in the story.  But that doesn't mean that there's any emotions that are communicated to the audience.  If anything, the movie understands that cool is life.  That's a Danny Rojas sentence, but I'm going to keep it in for momentum.  That's why we have Brad Pitt in the lead role.  This sounds like an insult to Brad Pitt, assuming that he can't do vulnerable stuff.  He absolutely can.  But do you know what I associate with Brad Pitt?  Brad Pitt is Ocean's Eleven. He's not eating in this one (as far as I can remember), but he is taking these larger than life story moments with such a stride.  Any one of the things that happens to Ladybug would leave me in a heap on the floor.  Ladybug Brad Pitts everything away.  It allows for a specific story.

Bullet Train makes me question everything.  I already feel like I'm beating a dead horse.  If I read this script, I would poo-poo it so hard.  But the second thing is a script that ties everything together.  I've taught playwriting twice.  One of my key rules is not to be clever.  Clever is what screenwriters do to cover up substance.  If I had to attack one moment of cleverness, it's everything that Lemon does.  For those not in the know, Lemon is a character who relates every situation, no matter how grim, to the lessons taught in Thomas the Tank Engine.  Good golly, that joke should get old.  Everything...every two seconds: a Thomas joke.  But it works.  And it makes the film have such a shorthand that emphasizes mood and plot.  We don't need to know a lot about Lemon.  Lemon, for all of his murderous cool, is a guy who likes the simple things in life.  Contrasted to that is Tangerine, whose cynicism stops him from leading a life that brings him joy.  And because the script continually makes Thomas the Tank Engine references, we see through the language of Lemon.  People become Percies and Henries and Diesels.  It's great.  It takes something that could be kind of mundane and gives us a new lens to experience this world.

I don't know if the end really works in reality, but it does through the concept of suspension of disbelief.  (Again, any advice I can give: suspend all disbelief because it makes the movie fun).   Prince.  I want to talk about Prince.  I forgot that the character was named Prince and that's on me.  But Prince is simultaneously a hero and a villain in this piece.  Ladybug has a really dumb goal: take the case off the train.  (Again, suspension of disbelief.)  Hypothetically, if he wasn't unlucky, he would have been off in one.  Heck, if Carter was there, the story wouldn't exist.  Okay.  But Prince's goal is to kill the White Death.  From her perspective, she's gathered a group of absolute monsters, planted bombs on a lot of them, and sent them hurtling towards the White Death.  

But now I have to question myself.  I keep going back to the suspension of disbelief well.  I keep using this as an excuse for me liking this movie.  Maybe I should be rougher on it.  I can't help that I liked it so much.  But let's be real.  A lot of this script doesn't make any sense.  I'm going to be arguing the subjectivity of this movie, but I might have no leg to stand on.  So some things work.  Originally, I was frustrated that the White Death organized everything in this movie for the sake of getting revenge on Carver, who isn't in the movie.  But that didn't work with the Wolf, who attacks Ladybug in revenge for the poisoning job.  Then I remembered / quick-Google-searched that the Wolf was looking for The Hornet and was happily surprised to see Ladybug.  But then something hit me pretty hard.  The only reason that Ladybug didn't get off the train was because the Wolf stopped him.  If Carver was there, the story would have ended when he got off of the train.  After all, the mission was in its simplicity: get the case and get off the train.  Let's pretend that Carver would also have been stopped by the Wolf.  I'm not sure how it worked, but Carver could have been at the wedding hit too.  Okay.  What are the odds that the Wolf stops Carver at the exact train door? 

See, I'm starting to highlight what cleverness gets you?  The film is fun for its absolutely bananas complex plot.  The same thing can probably be said for Glass Onion, which I also forgave.  But Bullet Train holds up to very little scrutiny.  Yeah, just because it tied up loose threads that I didn't think of doesn't mean that every loose thread is tied up.  But then, I can't help but like it. If anything, for all of my criticisms of film, maybe Bullet Train acts as a criticism of me.  I do think that Bullet Train should be out there.  I also said the same thing about Shoot 'Em Up, a movie I desperately need to return to. The thing is, I think my blog persona might be something very different from my real life persona. Don't get me wrong: all versions of me like quality and classics.  But I read a lot and preach the gospel that great things should be balanced with guilty pleasures.  It makes us appreciate life more knowing that we're not mired in snobbiness.  Bullet Train is simultaneously kind of smart and fantastically dumb.  But it's that balance that makes life worth living.  Lobster isn't lobster if you can't enjoy a cheeseburger everyone once in a while.  (Thanks, The Menu!)  

So I shouldn't try to defend this movie.  I enjoyed exploring the plot of it.  I even love the fact that the characters, as 2D as they are, are memorable.  But this is a silly film that I'm not going to apologize for.