Bullet Train

2022 - 8 - 3

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Image courtesy of "Mashable"

'Bullet Train' review: David Leitch snatched Guy Ritchie's whole vibe (Mashable)

Based on Kōtarō Isaka's 2010 novel, Bullet Train follows a hitman turned "snatch and grab guy" whose operation name is Ladybug. Brad Pitt, Sandra Bullock, ...

But without its non-stop stunts and hijinks, Bullet Train becomes a bit of a bore, right before a climax that is not only bonkers but also unapologetically dumb in its physical comedy. By contrast, Henry is the wild card of the pair, bickering in front of hostages, and resolutely tying every situation to the stories of Thomas the Tank Engine. Though this feels like a cutesy Hollywood screenwriting flourish, the Thomas and Friends stuff is actually an element from Isaka's novel. Overall, Bullet Train is a blast. But as the train hits the final leg of its trip, these flashbacks become derailing — and knowingly stupid. He's a master at finding exciting new ways to throw punches — and every possible improvised weapon — and making it cinematically stunning. Prominent in promotions for good reason are Aaron-Taylor Johnson and Brian Tyree Henry, who play "The Twins," aka a tag team of assassins who go by Tangerine and Lemon. Both boast sparkling British accents, but Johnson pops out of the mold of English gangster with a polished presentation and a refusal to get ruffled. But this incongruity is precisely the point, making Pitt the goofy grinned center of an unapologetically silly and nonetheless ultra-violent thrill ride. Based on Kōtarō Isaka's 2010 novel, Bullet Train follows a hitman turned "snatch and grab guy" whose operation name is Ladybug (Brad Pitt) — a bit of a joke as he is "biblically" unlucky. Here, it plays as unexpected fun, then a bit grating, then circles back around to bizarrely bemusing — and in no small part because of Henry's commitment to the bit. While these foes come armed with guns, knives, and deadly venom, Ladybug has opted not to carry a weapon but instead a bunch of therapy soundbites about how every conflict is an opportunity for change. On board for Bullet Train, you might well think of movies like Snatch and Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels, where a cluster of quirky criminals collide in messy missions, resulting in as much violent mayhem as moments to philosophize with dynamite dialogue. But Ladybug soon runs afoul of a snarl of killers, with cool code names like The Prince, The Wolf, The Hornet, and the dastardly duo of Tangerine and Lemon (more on them in a bit).

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'Bullet Train': A fast, chaotic trip to nowhere (The Washington Post)

The hyperviolent yet quippy action flick "Bullet Train" is yet another example of the pernicious influence of Quentin Tarantino on cinema.

The joke-joke-fight rhythm continues apace until a final confrontation in which the connections in “Bullet Train” are explained by way of an improbably elaborate scheme. Indeed, Tarantino’s reach extends even to Pitt’s relationship with Leitch, who has worked as Pitt’s stunt double, an unmistakable echo of Pitt’s role in Tarantino’s “ Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.” Directed by David Leitch, who has evinced impressive action chops with such films as “ Atomic Blonde” and the John Wick franchise, “Bullet Train” is reverse-engineered to satisfy an itch routinely met by the likes of Ben Wheatley, Matthew Vaughn, Guy Ritchie and Edgar Wright. If you’re craving one more variation on the well-worn theme of promiscuous bloodlettings accompanied by glib verbal filler, Leitch has served up a presentable slab of grist for an increasingly creaky mill.

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'Bullet Train' review: Brad Pitt stars in a thrill ride you can afford to ... (CNN)

"Bullet Train" certainly moves at an appropriately brisk pace, with Brad Pitt heading a sprawling cast. But the breakneck action is offset by a smart-alecky ...

The claustrophobic setting actually works to the advantage of staging the fight sequences, which are brutal, bloody and frequently played for laughs. The tradeoff, though, is that some more recognizable faces appear so briefly as to barely register. Alas, he's not the only skilled assassin on board, with each pursuing different marching orders, confusion as to who's pulling the strings and a whole lot of miscommunication along the way.

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Bullet Train review – Brad Pitt choo-chooses badly with runaway ... (The Guardian)

All off-board for this sub-Guy Ritchie clanger in which Pitt plays a gonzo hitman outwitting quirky killers in the service of Sandra Bullock.

It rattles strenuously on and on and on with unexciting and uninterestingly choreographed fights, cameos which briefly pep up the interest and placeholder non-lines where the funny material should have gone. Pitt’s puppyish good nature keeps it from flatlining entirely but he doesn’t have anything like the script and direction that he got from Soderbergh or Tarantino or Fincher. And the Japanese setting is handled really cursorily; there are gags about Japanese toilets which should have gone out in the 1980s. They both talk with poundshop Laarndaarn accents and Lemon has an obsession with, of all the quirky-cool things, Thomas the Tank Engine - an elaborate yet perfunctory character touch which is about 47% as funny and well-observed as it needed to be.

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Review: 'Bullet Train' goes off the rails, but Pitt doesn't (Associated Press)

Aboard the speeding locomotive of “Bullet Train” ride at least five assassins, one venomous reptile (a snake on the train), countless glib Guy Ritchie-esque ...

“Bullet Train,” a Columbia Pictures release, is rated R by the Motion Picture Association of America for strong and bloody violence, pervasive language, and brief sexuality. “Bullet Train” might go off the rails but Pitt remains bulletproof. But the more-is-more manic energy of “Bullet Train” eventually peters out, since that’s all the movie was ever running on. In “Bullet Train,” a movie that proudly opts for style over substance, characters are introduced like videogame fighters, running gags get run into the ground and a winking irreverence lands somewhere in between playful and exhausting. All are on the train for various criminal reasons ultimately connected to a Russian kingpin named the White Death. The actor playing this most fearsome character is best left to the third-act reveal, but that’s just one way “Bullet Train” plays around with star persona. Ladybug, tasked to grab a very particular briefcase off a train headed from Tokyo to Kyoto, might not be up for the job, but the bigger question is whether “Bullet Train” is a good enough vehicle for its biggest star.

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Bullet Train First Reviews: An Outrageous Thrill Ride Elevated by A ... (Rotten Tomatoes)

Critics say the cartoonish, neon-soaked action flick is funny and fast-paced, even if it eventually flies off the rails and doesn't quite stick the landing.

–Jason Bailey, The Playlist –Danielle Solzman, Solzy at the Movies –Roger Moore, Movie Nation –Jason Bailey, The Playlist Bullet Train becomes a bit of a bore, right before a climax… I was genuinely sorry to see him go the first couple of times he was murdered. We haven’t seen him in a role that allows him to cut loose with this amount of physicality, while also firing off jokes at a Tarantino/Ritchie rate of fire. There’s also a ton of comedy, to the point where this is oddly funnier than it is thrilling… It’s the ridiculousness and twisty nature of Bullet Train that makes this film such a wild ride. What all of [his] movies have in common is that they bit off more than they can chew… If you’re looking for an action flick that’s thrilling and ridiculous in equal measure, you’re in for a treat. From one of the directors of John Wick who also helmed Deadpool 2, Atomic Blonde, and Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw comes another outrageous action movie that is sure to be a hit with moviegoers, according to its first reviews.

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Bullet Train review: John Wick, Looney Tunes style (Polygon)

Bullet Train, the latest film from John Wick and Deadpool 2 director David Leitch, adds precise Wick-style action to a goofy, cartoonish train full of ...

Cartoonish as it is, Bullet Train is committed to letting its core cast make as big an impression as they can through quirks and fights, as Olkewicz’s knotty script ping-pongs between past and present. In his hands, Bullet Train is a Looney Tunes-esque actioner with a buzzy cast playing a batch of goofy assassins all on the same train to Kyoto, and all after the same briefcase. It feels a lot like a version of The Raid, with Daffy Duck cast in the lead role. The biggest joy of Bullet Train is watching the apologetic choreography of Ladybug’s fights, as he alternates between open-palmed peacemaking and accidental murder. As Ladybug, Brad Pitt is a tremendously fun action hero, an annoying guy who clearly just discovered therapy and The Power of Positive Thinking in the same week. They have to use every tool at their disposal to convey every square inch of that space to the audience, so they’ll better appreciate what happens when it all falls to pieces as the combatants carouse from one end to the other.

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Aaron Taylor-Johnson Lost a Chunk of His Hand and Passed Out ... (IndieWire)

"Bullet Train" star Aaron Taylor-Johnson had to spend the night in the hospital following a severe on-set injury.

That was an odd atmosphere, when you’ve been lucky enough to have had that intimacy in the past and that collaboration you feed off.” “I don’t know what happened, but it became a comedy!” Taylor-Johnson said. And then I came back and was like ‘Should we go again?’ And they were like ‘No, no, no.

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From 'The Great Train Robbery' to 'Bullet Train': How Movies ... (Collider.com)

Trains have been a staple of cinematic storytelling for over a century, but why?

Ever since the days of 1896, trains and movies have been an inseparable duo that can accomplish anything. In the modern era, it also doesn’t hurt the heavy presence of trains in movies that this form of transportation is massively marketable. You can make out anything that’s happening right outside your window, which can be anything from famous landmarks to the gorgeous countryside to even, in the case of movies like The Girl on the Train, witnessing key plot details. You can experience gorgeous sights outside of a plane, but you’re usually too far off the ground to make out what’s happening below. This can be partially attributed to how many working-class people used trains compared to other modes of transportation. A key reason for this was a genre that dominated the cinematic landscape in the first half of the 20th century: Westerns. Most entries in this genre were period pieces set in eras that could never even comprehend the airplane. The highly influential nature of The Great Train Robbery also established certain images and motifs that future Western movies would indulge in. The popularity of trains in cinema would be especially solidified in 1903 when The Great Train Robbery debuted. Whether it’s silent films from the dawn of movies to modern blockbusters like Bullet Train, trains have been practically interwoven into the history of movies. The possibilities for the unique kind of spectacle that trains could be involved in were suddenly more apparent than ever before. The last two decades of the 19th century saw cinema begin to emerge as a tool for storytelling, with artists like George Méliès beginning to make titles that would qualify as genre cinema in the 1890s. While it remains up for debate whether this incident happened or not, the enduring presence of this yarn speaks to how deeply ingrained trains are into impactful and crowd-pleasing cinema.

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How Bullet Train Pulled Off a Brad Pitt and David Leitch Reunion ... (Den of Geek)

Director David Leitch began as Brad Pitt's stuntman. Now they're taking the Bullet Train to the end of the line.

“There’s a moment of comedy, and then BAM, there’s a moment of stakes. “We were looking to lean on some of the greats in physical comedy as inspirations as we build out Ladybug’s language and the language for the choreography,” he says. Can you do it?’ And he’d remember the moves and learn it right there on set.” Leitch credits Koji’s experience on Warrior and his martial arts background, with allowing him to deliver action that would’ve taken other actors a couple of weeks to learn. “Brad is an incredible athlete and obviously one of the biggest movie stars working today, and that’s because of his work ethic and his talent,” Leitch says. And the environments outside were real and compelling,” Leitch says. “He would learn it on the spot, and we could beef up his action. They only had a few weeks to prepare when the stunt team blocked out all the sequences and then rehearsed them with Pitt and the other actors. “When you watch a great Jackie Chan fight, he does all versions of choreography,” Leitch says. “How do I make them relatable, empathetic, and human, even if they’re not redeemable?” He shifted the film toward a slightly heightened world that allowed the filmmakers to have more fun and be more irreverent, colorful, and bold. “I decided to start to lean into directing because I’d had a lot of time practicing these mini-stories within action sequences,” he explains. You want to see more, you want to root for them, and just go on this journey. “Brad came in immediately with such great ideas for his character that I was really excited about,” Leitch says.

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'Bullet Train' Star Aaron Taylor-Johnson Reveals Bloody On-Set ... (Variety)

Aaron Taylor-Johnson says he was hospitalized after suffering an on-set injury while shooting "Bullet Train."

“David Leitch gave us so much room to improv and ad-lib, and we really just wanted to make these characters pop. “We all just came and had fun, you know,” Taylor-Johnson said. “Some war wounds.”

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Image courtesy of "Screen International"

'Bullet Train': Review (Screen International)

This self-consciously hip action-comedy is bolstered by a game cast led by Brad Pitt, but far too often director David Leitch indulges in a pseudo-Tarantino mix ...

A former stunt coordinator and fight choreographer, Leitch supplies Bullet Train with myriad adrenalised action sequences, which often take place in close quarters as Ladybug and his enemies battle it out for the briefcase and its mysterious contents. (Taylor-Johnson and Henry don’t just play partners but also brothers, their drab bickering giving way to surprising tenderness.) Big names pop up in brief roles, chiefly to get a laugh out of the audience because one wouldn’t anticipate they’d sign up for such intentionally tiny parts. Pitt plays Ladybug, a hitman who is trying to live a more mindful existence, which is why he has agreed to do what seems like a pretty straightforward, low-risk job: board a train in Tokyo: steal a specific briefcase, and get off at the next stop. Whether sporting flagrant accents or bizarre personality traits, Bullet Train’s denizens are a rogues’ gallery of lovable weirdoes, with Leitch delighting in watching them bounce off each other — sometimes literally — as they’re trapped on the same fast-moving transport. Sony unveils Bullet Train on August 3 in the UK; the US follows two days later. Bullet Train recklessly barrels down the tracks, always at top speed, constantly threatening to go right off the rails.

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'Bullet Train' Director David Leitch Breaks Down Filming the Movie ... (Collider.com)

The film stars Brad Pitt, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Brian Tyree Henry, Joey King, Andrew Koji, Hiroyuki Sanada, Zazie Beetz, Michael Shannon, Logan Lerman, Hiroyuki ...

Kelly and I had a blast, the actors had a blast, the studio loved the results, and it's happening. I need to be inspired by a location, I need to be inspired by the touching and feeling and seeing things. It turned out I wanted, I thought it was more fun to be inside of the service car where the concessions were, where the concession cart could come in, and we could do this sort of fun gag with the concession girl. I think one of the reasons why you can have a lot of fun with Fall Guy because it takes place in the movie world. And again, Taika had made this comment recently, for whatever it's worth, I saw a headline where he's like, "I'm not into director's cuts, because they're director's cuts because they're bad," or whatever like that. You can test and hear people laugh, you know the joke works. Some of the structures were structural, some of the poles were structural, some of them were facades, right? So met with visual effects, met with cinematographer, Jonathan Sela, and we started to research this idea of, "Let's have LED screens outside of the train. which we did, "Augment the plates, stitch them together, create some digital plates, heightened stuff, and get this all done in the next eight weeks before we step foot on a train?" And Sanford's like, "I'm doing it, I'm doing it." So it's like, "Okay, what's the version of this movie where we try some of this new virtual production technology? And I'm like, "Can we?"

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Brad Pitt Credits Jackie Chan for Influencing Bloody 'Bullet Train ... (IndieWire)

Brad Pitt credited Jackie Chan for influencing David Leitch's stunt-heavy and star-studded action comedy "Bullet Train," out August 5.

Pitt’s real-life stunts in “Bullet Train” proved to be breakout scenes for the otherwise C-rated feature, as IndieWire critic David Ehlrich wrote. Leitch later directed Pitt in “Deadpool 2” when the Oscar winner had a cameo as comic book character Vanisher. But I was just blown away by him embracing me as the director and leaning into my ideas.”

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Brad Pitt action movie 'Bullet Train' speeds into theaters (Reuters)

Action movie "Bullet Train" starring Brad Pitt is pulling into its final stop - cinemas - starting on Wednesday. The film sees Pitt's hitman character, ...

"We had to get off the train for the outer circle to come on. "We had the outer circle and people could only be on the train from the inner circle," Pitt said in an interview. Unbeknownst to him, he is not the only assassin looking for the case, or for revenge.

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A Brad Pitt fan? Here's a peek at his new film 'Bullet Train' plus ... (The Columbus Dispatch)

Brad Pitt stars in the film "Bullet Train." Here's a preview of the 58-year-old's new flick, plus a look back at some of his other films.

Over the course of a career that stretches back to the late 1980s, Pitt has shown a gift for versatility. As you prepare for “Bullet Train,” check out several of Pitt’s most notable and diverse earlier films. • “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood . . .” (2019): Pitt won an Oscar, his first, for his performance as stuntman Cliff Booth, devoted friend and colleague of fading star Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio) in Hollywood in the late 1960s.

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'Bullet Train' Review: Brad Pitt Leads This Gleefully Overloaded ... (Variety)

Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Brian Tyree Henry and half a dozen others duke it out en route to Kyoto in David Leitch's kinetic "Bullet Train."

Maria (as voiced by Sandra Bullock) is the bug in Pitt’s ear, guiding the newly nonviolent tough guy (a detail recently seen in “The Hitman’s Bodyguard” movies) through what’s supposed to be the cinchiest job of his career: Board the bullet train in Tokyo, grab the MacGuffin and step off at the next stop. Tangerine and Lemon are likable characters, though the latter is constantly going on about how everything he learned about people comes from “Thomas the Tank Engine” (which explains a lot about how reductive the movie’s understanding of human nature is). Similarly, Ladybug is constantly quoting trite self-help aphorisms, which invariably get a laugh. Stylistically, Leitch is trying his darnedest to channel the likes of Tarantino and Ritchie, even if the dialogue and mock-British accents aren’t nearly strong enough to earn such comparisons. Ladybug and the Wolf have a knife fight in the bar area. “Bullet Train” feels like it comes from the same brain as “Snatch,” wearing its pop style on its sleeve — a “Kill Bill”-like mix of martial arts, manga and gabby hit-man-movie influences, minus the vision or wit that implies. The bullet train from Tokyo to Kyoto takes about two hours and 15 minutes — just the right amount of time to pull off a cartoonishly over-the-top action movie, in which half a dozen assassins shoot, stab and otherwise perforate each other’s pretty little faces in pursuit of a briefcase stuffed with cash.

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'Bullet Train': Aaron Taylor-Johnson lost chunk of hand during stunt (INSIDER)

Aaron Taylor-Johnson told Variety at the LA premiere of "Bullet Train" on Monday that he had to get stitches after the injury on set.

You gotta go get stitches at the hospital.' So then I spent the night in the hospital." "David Leitch gave us so much room to improv and adlib, and we really just wanted to make these characters pop. "I was on some crazy mad Keto diet," the "Bullet Train" actor said. In the movie, based on a Japanese novel of the same name, the 32-year-old actor plays Tangerine, one of several assassins in the movie. And I literally went, wham, passed out." "Because I got all scrawny and lean for this, so I basically had low blood sugar levels.

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Image courtesy of "Empire"

Bullet Train (Empire)

Assassin 'Ladybug' (Pitt) is sent by his handler (Bullock) on a seemingly simple mission: get on a Japanese Shinkansen bullet train, retrieve a briefcase, ...

Style over substance feels like the whole point here (and the style itself is substantial), but Bullet Train only ever operates on a surface level — the screenplay’s explorations of surrendering to fate versus attempting to seize control feel shallow at best. Plus, its appropriation of Japanese culture feels uncomfortably tokenistic, revelling in East Asian iconography while presenting a sprawling cast of largely non-Asian actors, wasting Karen Fukuhara and Masi Oka in bit-parts, and sidelining legends like Hiroyuki Sanada (stuck speaking in ‘Wise Old Man’ tropes when he does enter the film). Like its transportation namesake, Bullet Train is fast, slick, and shiny — but this is less intent on going directly from A to B than it is looping back around on itself in knots of coincidences and contrivances, as a cavalcade of contract killers clash in the carriages.

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Image courtesy of "The A.V. Club"

Bullet Train takes Brad Pitt for a ride before it goes off the rails (The A.V. Club)

Director David Leitch has designs on Quentin Tarantino and Guy Ritchie, but his assassin thriller falls well short.

The problem isn’t that Leitch doesn’t have the talent to pull off a film like this, but that he doesn’t have the personality. Especially when it’s anchored by an equally familiar performance by Pitt, whose movie stardom has been amplified by the talents of filmmakers like Tarantino and Ritchie, but doesn’t always generate enough wattage to juice up a lackluster project on its own. As a conflict-averse assassin, Ladybug’s efforts to resolve each new confrontation runs out of gas, especially since Pitt has played some version of a capable dope with more words than brains since at least The Mexican. Watching the actor have fun on screen should actually be fun, but here it feels like he’s dragging the train along, instead of effortlessly riding it.

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Bullet Train cameos: All the uncredited appearances (Radio Times)

Brad Pitt takes on the lead role as assassin 'Ladybug' in the Japan-set thriller, and he's joined by an impressive enemsble that includes Aaron Taylor-Johnson, ...

We get a brief glimpse of the real Carver, who it turns out is played by none other then Ryan Reynolds, but it's very much a blink and you'll miss it affair. Tatum duly obliges but only after asking Ladybug if this is part of a "sex thing." The final cameo – and the briefest of them all – comes when we are told that Ladybug is only carrying out this particular job because the assassin who was originally enlisted to complete it, a man named Carver, fell sick at the last minute.

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Brad Pitt's 'Bullet Train' Press Tour Looks: See All the Photos (PEOPLE.com)

Brad Pitt has had a blast promoting his new thriller Bullet Train — and is dressing the part, too. See the photos.

See the similarities? Berlin, July 19 He loved it."

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Bullet Train: Brad Pitt film goes off the rails, critics say (BBC News)

Reviewers were less than impressed by Brad Pitt's new action-comedy flick, set on a train in Japan.

"What it isn't, in any way, is deep," he added. "He's kind of our Buster Keaton. He's so talented and underrated even. This is a tourist ride to nowhere." "[Director] David [Leitch] and I had always been big fans of Jackie Chan - we'd been talking about him for decades. "Like its transportation namesake, Bullet Train is fast, slick, and shiny - but this is less intent on going directly from A to B than it is looping back around on itself in knots of coincidences and contrivances, as a cavalcade of contract killers clash in the carriages," he wrote. The adaptation of the pulp novel makes the characters "twice as eccentric as necessary", he continued, concluding that while "this may be a fun enough ride" none of it is "particularly deep".

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Bullet Train ending explained: Who survives Brad Pitt action movie? (Radio Times)

The new action flick sees five assassins come to blows as they each carry out seemingly separate missions.

In the end, though, it's Lemon who saves the day. And so an almighty battle ensues, with Lemon now desperately trying to drive the out-of-control bullet train. Yuichi, we learn, is part of a crime syndicate headed up by the elusive crime lord named the White Death (Michael Shannon), whom Prince is hoping to take down. We learn that after he had landed in the sea, he killed off the man he had been battling and soon came across, of all things, a truck transporting tangerines – a nice nod to his fallen comrade, who had died while still on the train. There's an awful lot going on, in other words. Earlier on, we were told that the White Death has for a long time been mourning the death of his wife, who died after she was caught up in an assassination attempt aimed at him, and it turned out that he was eager to ensure everyone who could in any way be considered responsible for her death was on the train – predicting that they would end up in a battle and kill each other.

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bullet train: Bullet Train review: Brad Pitt's action flick derails due to ... (The Economic Times)

The movie "Bullet Train" starring Brad Pitt has failed to garner positive responses from the audience. The storytelling has hurt the movie.

The role of Lemon and Tangerine has been played by Brian Tyree Henry and Aaron Taylor-Johnson, respectively. However, Pitt is not the only assassin on the train with that mission. The movie's action scenes are offset by an uneven mashup of styles and smart-alecky tone.

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Bullet Train: Brilliant cast and top stunt co-ordination save cartoonish ... (Stuff.co.nz)

REVIEW: Twenty minutes too long and 20 IQ points too stupid to be a truly great, bad film, it knows what it was put here to do – and mostly delivers.

Bullet Train is about 20 minutes too long and 20 IQ points too stupid to be a truly great, bad film. There are many, many other actors in Bullet Train, some of them extremely well known and maybe just dropping in to do Leitch a favour. In Bullet Train, the contrivance revolves around a Yakuza boss – an improbable Russian – transporting his son, who had been kidnapped, back to the safety of his fortress. Tyree Henry's”'Lemon” even arrives with a set of Thomas the Tank Engine stickers that yield one of the few human moments in the entire film. It is also one of the elements of Kōtarō Isaka's source novel that has survived more or less intact. But with Leitch ( Deadpool 2, Hobbs and Shaw) in charge and Pitt, Joey King and Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Bryan Tyree Henry as the Brit' “twins”, Bullet Train works just fine.

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Image courtesy of "Vanity Fair"

'Bullet Train' Goes Off the Rails (Vanity Fair)

The film is based on a popular, and acclaimed, Japanese novel by Kōtarō Isaka. But considerable changes have been made by screenwriter Zak Olkewicz—and, in ...

But those moments are short lived, and then it’s back to the awkward squirm of watching talented actors debase themselves for laughs that never come. It’s a painful gag that’s returned to again and again, one of many examples of Bullet Train going for sideways erudition and falling hideously flat. The film is based on a popular, and acclaimed, Japanese novel by Kōtarō Isaka. But considerable changes have been made by screenwriter Zak Olkewicz—and, in improvisatory fashion, by the actors under Leitch’s command.

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Aaron Taylor-Johnson hospitalised over painful injury on Bullet ... (Metro)

Aaron Taylor Johnson was taken to hospital after an accident while filming a stunt for new film Bullet Train.

And then I came back and was like “Should we go again?” And I literally went wham, passed out. ‘Because I got all scrawny and lean for this, so I basically had low blood sugar levels.

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Image courtesy of "/FILM"

Brian Tyree Henry Took His Bullet Train Role Beyond What Was ... (/FILM)

The premise is a simple yet entertaining one. An assassin named Ladybug (Brad Bitt) runs into a host of colorful characters inside the train after a botched ...

By investing the character with disparate interests, Henry paints Lemon as a scary dude who really happens to like Thomas the Tank Engine. Per Leitch, Henry makes this combination work as he knew "exactly what to do with it," and called his collaboration with Henry "the greatest notes he's ever gotten from an actor." Leitch called such character details "fun and fascinating" and praised Henry's "earnest and adult" way of weaving this aspect organically into his character. We went back to the material and did some work on Lemon to even these characters out." The director also explained that while "Bullet Train" was envisioned as a serious revenge flick, the shift in tone towards comedy-action worked in favor of Henry's character. Among the ensemble cast that helped bring this wild tale to life, it was Brian Tyree Henry's Lemon who fleshed out his role beyond the scope of the script. Things go hilariously awry inside a Tokyo-bound train in David Leitch's upcoming action-comedy, "Bullet Train." The premise is a simple yet entertaining one.

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Image courtesy of "Vulture"

Run Me Over, Bullet Train (Vulture)

Movie Review: In Bullet Train, Brad Pitt plays a crook who's been hired to steal a briefcase. Unfortunately, the train is loaded with assassins.

To choreograph all this, both on a story level and an action-design level, and to make it make any kind of sense is a fairly impressive feat. And amid all the shooting and slicing and punching and stabbing, we can almost make out the contours of an interesting philosophical question: Is it better to care and die or to have nothing to live for and survive? And very often what determines the outcome of a scene is not skill or purpose but sheer chance and fate, working in all the Rube Goldberg ways that fate seems to work in movies. Tangerine (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) and Lemon (Brian Tyree Henry), known together as the Twins, are there to deliver to a mysterious and all-powerful Russian gangster his deadbeat son (Logan Lerman) and a briefcase full of money. It’s all manipulation and extended cinematic sleight of hand, but the film embraces its absurdly colorful, noisy, gonzo artificiality. And at times, David Leitch’s film is almost as glorious as that description makes it sound — elaborate and ridiculous but dedicated to making the elaborate and the ridiculous feel … well, not plausible, exactly, but certainly compelling and fun.

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'Bullet Train' To Chug Summer Box Office To Last Hurrah With $60M ... (Deadline)

Sony is pulling in Bullet Train, the last big tentpole of a summer that has grossed $2.9 billion domestic through the end of July per Comscore, +142% from the ...

The pic made its world premiere at SXSW and is 98% certified fresh. Reviews haven’t registered on Easter Sunday yet but it’s expected to deliver in the mid-single digits this weekend at 3,200 theaters. The movie arrives today in France and the UK, followed by Australia, Brazil, Germany and Mexico joining Thursday with Spain clocking in on Friday. The hope is that the dynamic moviegoing 18-34 demographic shows up big. Sony is pulling in Bullet Train, the last big tentpole of a summer that has grossed $2.9 billion domestic through the end of July per Comscore, +142% from the same pandemic period a year ago, but off 17% from the May-July summer frame in 2019. Atomic Blonde was positioned to arthouses when it opened, and finaled at $51.6M domestic, while Hobbs & Shaw did $174M. Deadpool 2 remains Leitch’s highest grossing movie as a director both in the US/Canada ($325M) and worldwide ($786M).

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Image courtesy of "Collider.com"

'Bullet Train' Cast and Character Guide: Here's the Star-Studded ... (Collider.com)

Meet the assassins aboard the Brad Pitt action thriller Bullet Train and the brilliant actors who are playing them.

The Wolf is another dangerous hitman on board the bullet train who has a personal ongoing feud with Ladybug. He is portrayed by the Latin megastar Bad Bunny. He is a Puerto Rican rapper and singer, who has been gradually building a collection of acting credits. The film has a huge ensemble cast with Christian Bale, Margot Robbie, Zoe Saldana, Chris Rock, Rami Malek, and Robert De Niro to name just a few. Aaron is set to join Sony’s Spider-Man Universe (SSU) in the upcoming movie Kraven the Hunter in the title role. He has starred in various television series and movies such as Westworld, Lost, Rush Hour 3, The Wolverine, 47 Ronin, Avengers: Endgame, and the Mortal Kombat reboot. Michael Shannon is starring as the leader of a criminal organization who is most likely another major antagonist Ladybug will have to face. King will also be starring in Netflix’s upcoming movie The Uglies based on the Scott Westerfeld novel of the same name. King is also an executive producer on the project. The fact that it has such an amazing cast certainly can't hurt either, so let's take a closer look at who we can expect to see in what could possibly be the movie of the summer. Having first gained worldwide recognition for his role as a young drifter in Thelma & Louise in 1991, he went on to star in some of the most iconic movies of the '90s and early '00s. You may know him from his performances in Fight Club, Interview with the Vampire, Troy, World War Z, Inglorious Basterds, or perhaps the Ocean’s trilogy, but even these movies barely scratch the surface of his mile-long resume. As the train gets closer to its destination, it becomes anyone's game as they must all use their killer instincts to survive and make it to the final stop. His objective takes him onboard a train that seems to have a number of other dangerous passengers. The highly-anticipated Bullet Train is a new movie by David Leitch that features a star-studded ensemble.

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Image courtesy of "AMC Scene"

Bullet Train Is Exhilarating And Fast-Paced (AMC Scene)

BULLET TRAIN is exactly what you expect - fast-paced, exhilarating, and a good time. Learn more about the movie, based on the book by Kōtarō Isaka.

You will laugh, you will cheer, and you will be entertained by BULLET TRAIN. No matter how many action movies you may have seen before, BULLET TRAIN is one of a kind. Bullet trains travel at incredibly fast speeds and are used as a means of public transportation in Japan. BULLET TRAIN mainly takes place on the titular vehicle, and with this setting, the audience is taken on a journey that is energetic and fun. There are plenty of action movies that have come and gone over the last couple of years, but BULLET TRAIN is a return to form for what a summer blockbuster can be.

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Image courtesy of "/FILM"

The Bullet Train Stunt That Left Aaron Taylor-Johnson Hospitalized (/FILM)

Aaron Taylor-Johnson had a little chunk taken out of his hand, but that's not all.

But it sounds like the action got a little out of hand, because one of the "Bullet Train" fight scenes actually put Aaron Taylor-Johnson in the hospital. A little while back, I spoke to Alexander Skarsgård's "The Northman" trainer Magnus Lygdbäck, who said that you have to balance nutrition and workouts. David Leitch's latest action film " Bullet Train" is about to hit theaters.

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Image courtesy of "Page Six"

Aaron Taylor-Johnson was hospitalized for injury sustained on ... (Page Six)

A fight scene from upcoming Brad Pitt flick "Bullet Train" left co-star Aaron Taylor-Johnson passed out on set, ultimately resulting in his hospitalization.

“A decade of marriage,” he went on. You gotta go get stitches at the hospital.’ So then I spent the night in the hospital,” he added. And the one sharp bit of the corner where there wasn’t any padding took a chunk out of my hand.

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Image courtesy of "Boxoffice Pro"

Strangers on a Train: David Leitch's Bullet Train is Heading Directly ... (Boxoffice Pro)

A big-screen spectacle optimized for the theatrical experience, Sony's Bullet Train arrives in theaters this August with a point to prove at the box office.

It’s the sort of movie where we make it worth the effort of going to the cinema. The film delivers on that challenge because we focused on talent, a fun tone, and defining character moments within those sequences—so you’re learning something about a character as the fight resolves, or you’re adding to the stakes of one of the characters as the fight develops. I love the challenge of opening a summer movie with a lesser-known I.P., a film we had so much freedom in making, and proving that it can be successful and that we need to continue making this kind of movie.I had incredible experiences working with established franchises and doing sequels. Things are always going wrong for him in his movies, and the fight scenes are a result of that. My team will shoot what we call “Stunt This,” where we choreograph, edit, and shoot a fight on video multiple times so we can look at different iterations of it and see what’s working and what isn’t. That’s something we do before we bring a scene to the actors to train them for it. The choreography we did is designed for the characters and the incredibly fun and irreverent tone in this movie. We also wanted to keep a lot of the Japanese elements in the book, such as the characters played by Hiroyuki Sanada and Andrew Koji That’s where the real homage to the original work lies. John Wick is an exception to that trend and so is another film you made, Atomic Blonde. There aren’t many others on that list—George Miller’s Mad Max: Fury Road and Gareth Evans’s The Raid: Redemption come to mind—action movies that bring a fresh take on the genres and are best experienced in a movie theater. Isaka has been super gracious and supportive of the film and was excited that we set out to make a global version of his book with the international cast. I’d love to see a more loyal, Japanese adaptation of Bullet Train that adheres to the novel—but that’s just not what you set out to make with this film adaptation. That change allows the audience to go on this emotional roller coaster that I like to include in all my films. This is a type of film we don’t see very often: a multicultural cast in a big-budget action spectacle designed for theaters.

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Image courtesy of "Plugged In"

Bullet Train (Plugged In)

Ladybug just has the worst luck, which is arguably the most unfortunate character trait for someone working as an assassin. “My bad luck is biblical.

A man is stabbed, and a bottle is hit against someone’s head. A character is stabbed in the heart and hits the ground with a sickening snap of the neck. A man is Tasered. Cars explode in fiery messes. A bloodied boy is seen in the hospital, having been pushed off a roof by another person. In other general instances of violence, a person is bitten by a snake. We see many, many people die as these assassins fight, and they’ll die in a variety of gruesome ways.

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Image courtesy of "Young Hollywood"

Brad Pitt Is Back In Action In 'Bullet Train'! | Young Hollywood (Young Hollywood)

This Friday, August 5, marks Brad Pitt's return to the big screen as a leading man. Bullet Train finds the actor in an action comedy as Ladybug, ...

Pitt remarked to GQ that his character’s return to action might be premature: “You know, you do a month of therapy, you have one epiphany, and you think you’ve got it all figured out, and you’re never going to be forlorn ever again. Ladybug interacts with the eclectic cast of characters as he jumps between train cars and dodges punches. Simple, that is, until Ladybug realizes he’s not the only assassin looking for the briefcase -- this ride is about to get bumpy!

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Image courtesy of "Yahoo Sports"

Brad Pitt credits 'underrated' Jackie Chan as influence for 'Bullet ... (Yahoo Sports)

Actor Brad Pitt credited legendary Hong Kong action star Jackie Chan as the influence behind many of the fight scenes in his new movie, “Bullet Train.

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Image courtesy of "Cinema Blend"

How Brad Pitt Ended Up Reuniting With His Former Stuntman For ... (Cinema Blend)

In his new movie Bullet Train, Brad Pitt takes on his first lead role in an action movie in quite a while – but the project also holds a little more ...

What starts as an easy gig gets complicated very quickly, however, as Ladybug discovers that the high-speed rail is also occupied by a number of other professional killers, all of them having their own agendas. Not only is it an action movie that is following up his Oscar-winning work playing stuntman Cliff Booth in Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon A Time In Hollywood, but the film sees him team up with director David Leitch, who, decades ago, used to perform as Pitt’s stunt double (and doing a lot of his own stunts). Bullet Train is actually the second time that David Leitch and Brad Pitt have had the chance to work together in recent years, as the Pitt made a brief-but-hilarious cameo as The Vanisher in Deadpool 2 (which Leitch directed back in 2018). Of course, his role is far more substantial in Bullet Train, as he is positioned as the lead of the massive ensemble cast.

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Image courtesy of "/FILM"

Brad Pitt Channeled Buster Keaton And Jackie Chan For His Role In ... (/FILM)

But Pitt didn't just cook up the showy and unique persona for his character Ladybug out of nowhere. The seasoned performer took his inspiration from some ...

But, again, when I look back at his beautifully weird and physical performance in "Burn After Reading," which, sure, wasn't as stunt-heavy but still smeared on the slapstick, I have a lot of hope for what Pitt will bring to the table in "Bullet Train." At the end of the day, he's a charismatic, physical actor with comedic and dramatic chops to spare, so there will probably be something for everyone to enjoy in the summer action comedy. From there, logical reactions drive the scene and the physicality between actors — and from what we've seen so far, it appears that Pitt's performance will use this concept as a golden rule throughout his new film. Where the two greats meet is in their refined ability to balance that slapstick physical comedy we know and love with actual acrobatics and serious stunt work that few can achieve. Brad Pitt is a standout in "Bullet Train," the new Sony action comedy directed by David Leitch. But Pitt didn't just cook up the showy and unique persona for his character Ladybug out of nowhere. Keaton is remembered for the precision of his physicality and top-notch stunt work. The connection between Pitt, Keaton, and Chan lies in the icons' ability to finesse movement, slapstick, and top-notch acting into something so slick, it looked easy.

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Image courtesy of "British GQ"

If there has to be a Bullet Train 2, give it to Sandra Bullock (British GQ)

Sandra Bullock has a glorified Bullet Train cameo – but her presence elevates an otherwise messy action comedy. This is why Bullet Train 2 should be hers.

As Maria, Bullock is the foil to Ladybug’s weaponised incompetence, as he hyperventilates into paper bags and blames the situation on his chronic “bad luck.” Bullet Train is a disorienting ride that grows more tedious with every passing stop. With Speed, The Heat and Gravity under her belt, she's proved she's more than capable of carrying an action franchise. Anyone expecting a lot of Sandra Bullock in Bullet Train should lower their expectations now.

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