Your enjoyment of “Bullet Train,” a new action adventure now playing in theatres, will depend directly on your enjoyment of star Brad Pitt. He’s having fun punching, shooting and generally behaving badly throughout, but it’s possible he’s having more fun than the audience.
Based on the Japanese novel “Maria Beetle,” “Bullet Train” stars Pitt as assassin “Ladybug.” Plagued by mishaps—“My bad luck is biblical,” he complains.—he wants out of the criminal life. “You put peace into the world and you get peace back,” he says.
When his handler, Maria Beetle (Sandra Bullock), needs a replacement for a quick job aboard a bullet train heading from Tokyo to Kyoto, she reaches out. He gives her the “peace” line. Her response? “I think you’re forgetting what you do for a living.”
She ropes him in with the promise of an easy gig. Grab a silver briefcase full of cash and get off at the next stop. “What’s the catch?” “There is no catch,” Beetle says.
Of course, there is a catch. In this kind of movie there is always a catch.
In this case the world’s fastest train is packed with some of the world’s most highly trained killers, and every one of them has some kind of tie to a psychotic crime syndicate boss known as the White Death. “He doesn’t need a reason to kill people like you,” says a passenger. “He needs a reason not to.”
Among them are Cockney killers Tangerine (Brian Tyree Henry) and Lemon (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), The Prince (Joey King), a British assassin posing as a schoolgirl and The Wolf (Benito A Martínez Ocasio), a Mexican murderer with a vendetta against Ladybug.
Cue the darkly comedic action.
For all its high-speed antics, “Bullet Train” feels been-there-done-that. It’s as if Quentin Tarantino and Guy Ritchie met in a head-on collision. Director David Leitch and screenwriter Zak Olkewicz borrow elements from both filmmakers, but despite the flash and sass, the quick edits and even quicker quips, their film lacks the gusto of its inspirations. It’s a familiar tale told with flashbacks, revenge motifs, pop culture references—one of the assassins endlessly quotes “Thomas the Tank Engine”—pop songs layered over violent fight scenes and Ninja swords.
It is, I suppose, a great example of Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, except other than the reductive script, Leitch doesn’t actually reduce anything. Reuse and recycle, for sure, but the film’s commitment to ultraviolence, sprawling cast and excessive 126-minute running time don’t suggest a reduction of any kind.
Pitt appears to be having fun, but the character’s New Age journey—he’s a nonstop font of “let this be a lesson in the toxicity of anger” style platitudes—grows wearisome and it’s hard to shake the feeling that the actor is revisiting his Cliff Booth character in the “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood’s” LSD fight scene. It is a hoot to see him cold-cock a giant Anime character, but his befuddled killer act gets old quickly.
“Bullet Train” is a derailment. It’s a movie with the odd highlight—Lemon and Tangerine’s banter is a hoot—but despite its desperate need to entertain, it ultimately goes off the rails.
Richard joins CP24 to have a look at new movies coming to VOD, streaming services and theatres. Today we talk about the Viking drama “The Northman,” the surreal Nic Cage homage “The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent” and the animated heist flick “The Bad Guys.”
Richard sits in on the CFRA Ottawa morning show with guest host Graham Richardson to talk the new movies coming to theatres including the Viking drama “The Northman,” the surreal Nic Cage homage “The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent,” the animated heist flick “The Bad Guys” and the nostalgic documentary “The Automat.”
Richard joins NewsTalk 1010 host David Cooper on the coast-to-coast-to-coast late night “Showgram” to play the game “Did Richard Crouse Like This?” This week we talk about the Viking drama “The Northman,” the surreal Nic Cage homage “The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent” and the nostalgic documentary “The Automat.”
Watch Richard review three movies in less time than it takes to sign your name! Have a look as he races against the clock to tell you about the violent and visceral Viking drama “The Northman,” the surreal Nic Cage movie “The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent” and the nostalgic documentary “The Automat.”
There is perfect casting and then there is Nicolas Cage, playing a heightened version of himself in “The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent,” a meta new action comedy now playing in theatres.
Off screen Cage is a larger-than-life character, an Oscar winner known for his penchant for purchasing dinosaur skulls, tax troubles and wildly uneven cinematic output. He brings the weight of that public persona to this movie, making myth out of his own legend of self-indulgence.
Cage plays Cage as a faded Hollywood prince. Once a box office draw, he’s down on his luck, going broke and in need of a big money gig. He has become the White Claw of serious actors. He’s good, but no one with taste is taking him seriously.
Producers, scared off by his wild-at-heart reputation, give him the Hollywood kiss off. We love you, but are going in a different direction.
Depressed, he decides to leave Hollywood. “I’m done,” he says. “I’m quitting acting. Tell the trades it was a tremendous honour to be part of storytelling and myth-making.”
Before he leaves the life, he gets an offer he can’t refuse. Olive magnate Javi Gutierrez (Pedro Pascal) will pay Cage a million dollars to attend his birthday bash in Mallorca. The actor reluctantly agrees, and soon finds himself drinking and cliff-diving at Javi’s beautiful estate.
Javi is a huge fan, with a collection of cage collectibles. “Is this supposed to be me?” cage asks, gesturing at a statue of himself. “It’s grotesque. I’ll give you twenty thousand for it.”
Turns out the starstruck Javi isn’t what he appears. “Do you know who you’re spending time with?” CIA agent Vivian (Tiffany Haddish) asks Cage. “He’s one of the most ruthless men on the face of the earth.” They think Javi kidnapped the daughter of the president of Catalonia to influence an upcoming election.
Vivian and Agent Martin (Ike Barinholtz) recruit Cage to work undercover on Javi’s estate to get to the bottom of the case. “That little girl doesn’t have anyone,” says Vivian, “and if you leave, I don’t know what will happen to her.”
It’s a chance to do some good, but for Cage, it is also the role of a lifetime.
“The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent” is an entertaining, oddball movie. Essentially a one joke premise—i.e.: Cage as Cage—it plays with the tropes of many of Cage’s films, but doesn’t play as strictly homage or satire. It’s something else. What, exactly, I’m not quite sure.
It’s almost as if this is Nic Cage’s screw you to the folks who deride him for being a working actor who pumps out two or three movies a year. “I’ve always seen this as a job, as work,” he says, as though he feels bogged down by the weight of the critical appraisal of his artistic choices.
But this isn’t a movie about score settling. It’s a silly action comedy, unabashedly interested in entertaining the audience. It occasionally errs, mistaking familiar references from Cage’s filmography for jokes. It’s that “meme-ification”—the pinpointing of Cage call-backs—of the film’s humour that prevents it from becoming a knee slapper all the way through. There are laugh out loud moments, but there are more moments that feel more Instagram ready than cinematic.
Still, “The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent” is a good time, worth the price of admission to see young Cage advising older Cage and commit the most surreal example of actorly self-love ever seen on film.
Richard speaks to “CTV News at Six” anchor Andria Case about the best movies and television to watch this weekend including the poignant coming-of-age drama “Belfast,” the Dwayne Johnson, Ryan Reynolds and Gal Gadot action comedy “Red Notice” and the vicious Hollywood satire “The Beta Test.”
Richard joins CP24 to have a look at new movies coming to VOD, streaming services and theatres including director Kenneth Branagh’s poignant coming-of-age drama “Belfast,” the Dwayne Johnson, Ryan Reynolds and Gal Gadot action comedy “Red Notice, the searing Hollywood satire “The Beta Test” and the literary adaptation “Passing” starring Tessa Thompson and Ruth Negga.
Richard joins guest host Jim Richards and Jay Michaels of the NewsTalk 1010 afternoon show The Rush for Booze and Reviews! Today he talks about the origins of the Irish Coffee, the Kenneth Branagh coming-of-age film “Belfast” and the action comedy “Red Notice” on Netflix!
Your enjoyment of “Bullet Train,” a new action adventure now playing in theatres, will depend directly on your enjoyment of star Brad Pitt. He’s having fun punching, shooting and generally behaving badly throughout, but it’s possible he’s having more fun than the audience.
