Bullet Train

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 ...

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.

"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.

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.

"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.

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.

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.”

In 2009, Aaron Johnson was cast as a teenage John Lennon in "Nowhere Boy." This reunited him with Thomas Brodie-Sangster, who played none other than Lennon's ...

In the same year that he appeared in "Godzilla," Aaron Taylor-Johnson had a short, mid-credits cameo as Pietro Maximoff in "Captain America: The Winter Soldier," again, appearing with Elizabeth Olsen as his sister, Wanda. Fans of the Marvel pantheon knew what this meant. The actor had to undergo military training for the role, and performed many of his own stunts (via Metro). Even then, what seems to have attracted Taylor-Johnson most to "Godzilla" was Edwards' auteur-esque approach to the material. He also voiced the character in the first "Kick-Ass" video game. "The 'Godzilla' crew is such a small group of people that it feels more like an independent movie than anything I've ever worked on," he told Total Film (via Digital Spy). Although the film has a "Certified Fresh" rating on Rotten Tomatoes, it was also widely seen as polarizing upon its release, with negative reviews panning the core concept of young kids engaging in such ruthless violence. The film also starred Jessica Biel, Paul Giamatti, and Rufus Sewell — who, funnily enough, also played the title role in the same stage production of "Macbeth" that a young Johnson appeared in (via The Guardian). According to writer and director Neil Burger's DVD commentary, Johnson had to learn rudimentary magic tricks for his role, specifically how to balance an egg on a stick, and the disappearing ball. In 2009, Aaron Johnson was cast as a teenage John Lennon in "Nowhere Boy." This reunited him with Thomas Brodie-Sangster, who played none other than Lennon's fellow Beatle and long-time songwriting partner Paul McCartney. In preparation for the role, before he even auditioned, Johnson taught himself to sing and play guitar. His first major film role was in 2003, where he appeared as a young Charlie Chaplin in "Shanghai Knights" next to Jackie Chan and Owen Wilson. Still acting under his birth name, he continued to appear in projects in his native U.K. throughout his teenage years, including as the bully Niker in the 2004 BBC miniseries adaptation of Nicky Singer's novel "Feather Boy," a series which starred Thomas Brodie-Sangster. The film also provided a platform for many other young rising stars, including Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Chloë Grace Moretz, Lyndsy Fonseca, and Evan Peters. Johnson played Dave Lizewski, the film's awkward protagonist who decides to take to the streets as a costumed vigilante despite a complete lack of superpowers, skills, or even basic fighting training. Johnson also said that casting for "Nowhere Boy" was specifically looking for actors who could play, making it pretty impressive that he ended up landing the role. If you're a fan of "Atlanta" or "Eternals," Henry should most certainly look familiar to you. "Bullet Train" has been causing buzz for a while now.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Teddy Pendergrass offers some salient advice on his classic track Be for real, from Harold Melvin & the Bluenote's album I Miss You.

In Bullet Train, Leitch directs Brad Pitt, a shocking inversion of their previous relationship, as Leitch used to be Brad Pitt's stunt double. David Leitch, director of the upcoming Bullet Train, has become one of the most in-demand filmmakers in the industry. Teddy Pendergrass offers some salient advice on his classic track Be for real, from Harold Melvin & the Bluenote's album I Miss You. Pendergrass says, reminiscing about his mother's wisdom, "chances go 'round. She said, 'The same people you see going up, you meet the same old faces coming down.'" The line implores the listener to exercise humility when dealing with people they might deem below their station.

'It's really, really fun. Because all the fights are based around the humor,' Brad Pitt told PEOPLE Monday at the L.A. premiere of Bullet Train, out Friday.

"It was really impressive." "And there's so much ... there's so many moves to have to remember. "And it's really, really fun. ... He is one of those guys that really wants to go full-tilt boogie. "Watching him do the choreography and run through the beats. The plot follows competing assassins fighting to the death on a high-speed train.

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".

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.

The film sees Pitt's hitman character, Ladybug, seemingly taking on his easiest job as he is asked to locate a suitcase on a high-speed train and then disembark ...

"We had the outer circle and people could only be on the train from the inner circle," Pitt said in an interview. "We had to get off the train for the outer circle to come on. The film sees Pitt's character go toe-to-toe with the other assassins in high octane and often humorous fight scenes.

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.

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.

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.

A group of assassins navigate a Guy Ritchie-esque plot aboard a train from Tokyo to Kyoto in this film from the director of Deadpool 2.

Kimura’s father ( Hiroyuki Sanada, who lends Bullet Train its only gravitas) also shows in advance of the climactic fireworks. And the venomous Hornet ( Zazie Beetz) who takes out her targets with the help of a deadly snake… Then there’s Wolf (played by rapper Bad Bunny), who hitches a ride on the train seeking revenge on the assassin who took out his entire wedding party.

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).

Bullet Train, the newest action film from director David Leitch that stars Brad Pitt, is a riveting and high octane experience that you should check out.

You get the sense that this movie would have worked well as a dark, gritty action thriller throughout much of the film. While Pitt is the star of the show, this is a movie defined by its ensemble cast. Leitch helms his action with clarity and impact, creating a beautifully nonsensical thrill ride that could have been a trainwreck, but entertains to the end of the line. The movie’s tone is consistently outrageous, and Pitt does everything he can to match that tone with one of his first roles since his Oscar win. A high-octane roller coaster of a film, this is the must-see blockbuster of the summer, as it’s a funny, kick-ass train ride. This is the setup of the newest summer blockbuster, Bullet Train — an action comedy directed by David Leitch. This film stars Brad Pitt as Ladybug, a down-on-his-luck assassin assigned to collect a briefcase off of a bullet train going from Tokyo to Kyoto. Those familiar with Leitch’s work on Deadpool 2 and Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw know his style, and this movie does not disappoint.

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.

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.

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.

'Bullet Train' star Aaron Taylor-Johnson says a fight scene on the assassins-on-a-train flick ended with him seeking medical care.

"The one thing that I can say, you're going to see Brad Pitt do something, a kind of performance, that I've never seen him do," he teased. The film stars Pitt as a disillusioned assassin sent on a "simple" job to retrieve a briefcase on a bullet train. "When you sign up for a David Leitch movie, you know you gotta get a couple battle scars," Taylor-Johnson said. "I got all scrawny and lean for this, so I basically had low blood sugar levels." "I was on some crazy mad Keto diet," he said. You gotta go get stitches at the hospital,'" he said.

'Bullet Train' first reactions: 'a live-action cartoon'. Critics review “Bullet Train” staring Brad Pitt, ahead of its Friday release. By ...

Most reviews have been echoing similar sentiments — Brad Pitt is fun to watch, and “Bullet Train” is a mindlessly stimulating action movie. Given the action in the movie, it may come as no surprise that director David Leitch was a stuntman; formerly Brad Pitt’s double in “Fight Club” (1999) and other films. Monday, “Bullet Train” premiered at the TLC Chinese Theatre in Los Angeles, giving critics the chance to review the film before it premieres across the country on Aug. 5.

Bullet Train is out for movie fans around the world to watch, but just how can you see the summer blockbuster starring Brad Pitt?

Nope, when we said Bullet Train is playing exclusively in movie theaters, we meant it. In our Bullet Train review, we called the movie a crazy ride that the actors are all clearly having fun with, but have reservations if audiences will necessarily feel the same. Bullet Train is getting an exclusive release in movie theaters.

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!

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.

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.