They’re Lemon (Brian Tyree Henry) and Tangerine (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), a pair of idiosyncratic British hit men whose reputation precedes them. What could go wrong?įor starters, there are the two men transporting the item. Grab a briefcase - it’s got a sticker on the handle, you can’t miss it. Get on the bullet train heading out of Tokyo, the disembodied voice on his phone tells him. His handler, Maria, has started him off on something simple. Thanks to some time off and therapy, however, he’s ready to roll again. He’s had some bad luck on a few jobs, which has given him a bit of a Job complex he’s convinced some higher power has cursed him for reasons unknown. At the center of it all - in more ways than one - is Ladybug, a professional killer coming off a personal funk. A candy-colored concoction of carnage with a substantial body count and even higher empty-calorie count, director David Leitch and screenwriter Zak Olkewicz’s attempt to weave the book’s intersecting narratives into a singular piece of pulp fiction has a tendency to jump the rails at regular intervals. The man has not just aged well, he’s aged perfectly for the screen.Īnd Pitt can still carry the weight of a movie on those protein-shake shoulders, which is good, because Bullet Train needs a lot of carrying. It’s been three decades since a walking, talking abs-delivery-service sauntered into Thelma and Louise. What connects them is a performer who’s figured out exactly how to use an autumnal presence to his advantage without pandering or playing things up. Peruse the past seven years’ worth of acting work: neo-vanity projects ( By the Sea) and old-school star vehicles ( Allied), the lows ( War Machine) and the nosebleed highs ( Ad Astra and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, in the same year!). But it’s that last guy, the just-shy-of-sixtysomething Hollywood elder, who keeps edging his way into this particular spotlight. You get every single one of them in Bullet Train, the ballistics-and-whistles blockbuster adaptation of Kotaro Isaka’s 2010 crime novel about a commuter train filled with killers there’s a lot of Brad for your buck here. Or rather, the whole repertory company of Brad Pitts - the leading man who chased kooky character-actor roles, the matinee idol who stopped worrying and learned to love movie stardom, the wild-card outlier, the endlessly snacking comic relief, the grungy sex symbol, the All-American Adonis next door, the A-list veteran who lets his supernova aura do the talking.

Snake on the train full movie