Bullet Train

 

Stuntman-turned-director David Leitch's Bullet Train is as bloody and sardonic as 2018's Deadpool 2, which he directed, and 2014's John Wick, which he co-directed, albeit without credit.

His latest film stars Brad Pitt, for whom Leitch has doubled on occasion, as an assassin undergoing a crisis of conscience while he fulfills a contract to intercept a valise carrying God-knows-what to the world's most lethal gang leader, a mysterious Russian called The White Death.

The case is on a high-speed train from Tokyo to Kyoto. A half-dozen other hired killers -- played by Joey King, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Brian Tyree Henry, Andrew Koji, Bad Bunny and Zazie Beetz -- are on board for purposes that become clearer as the train rockets toward its destination, making brief stops along the way.

That the interception does not go smoothly is a given. But how Leitch and writer Zak Olkewicz, Bullet Train being only his second feature film, manage to move the story and chaos forward without repeating elements or motifs will no doubt delight cinephiles who know a thing or two about actioners and Japanese manga.

Everything about this entertaining picture races -- the exposition, the sight gags, the fights. Brilliantly, Leitch manages to keep a screen crowded with outsized personalities from appearing cluttered or messy, despite the bucketfuls of blood running down the walls.