Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Brad Pitt, Joey King, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Brian Tyree Henry, Andrew Koji, Hiroyuki Sanada, Michael Shannon, Benito A. Martinez, Sandra Bullock, Zazie Beetz, Logan Lerman, Masi Oka, Karen Fukuhara, Kevin Akiyoshi Ching, Minchi Murakami, Kaori Takentani, Toshitaka Katsumi, Jim Garrity, Emalina Adams, Jenson Cheng, Nobuaki Shimamoto, Yoshi Sudarso, Johanna Watts, Ian Gabriel Martinez, Tania Verafield, Pancho Cardena, Julio Gbaey, Andrea Munoz, Nancy Daly, Arnold Chum, Naomi Matsuda, Benmio McCrea, Pasha D. Lychnikoff, Primus Johnson, Miles Marz, Michelle Lee, Parker Lin, Garland Scott, Jason Matthew Smith, Zooey Miyoshi, Kamil Aydin, David Leitch.

Visually stunning, the perfect sense of timing and action, a narrative that is full and exciting, and a cast that gives everything to capture every detail imagined from its original conception within the graphic novel by Kōtarō Isaka…and whilst the white washing of Hollywood is forever noticed, David Leitch brings an enormous cache of respectability and honour to a film that is almost at times, sensationally impossible to keep up with.

In a similar way that Arthur Hiller’s 1976 hit, Silver Streak, made a star out of a long-distance train journey, so too does Bullet Train, and whilst it is impossible to replicate the combination of Gene Wilder and Richard Pryor, the script, the detail of a train going at top speed whilst assassins fight it out and rivalries and connections are mashed together with such precision that each scene is its own celluloid ballet, a chorography of movement, and one that does justice to each actor’s ability in the film.

Whilst Brad Pitt may be the leading actor, the one to whom the film’s reputation ultimately depends on, it is the sheer strength of the cast that brings this performance to its riveting conclusion. In Joey King the film has its Femme Fatale, Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Brain Tyree Henry are resolute in their portrayal of twin brothers, Hiroyuki Sanada is as polished in his role as The Elder as he perhaps as ever been, Zazie Beets is consummate in the role of The Hornet, and even in what amounts to limited time on screen, she captures the heart of the experience.

Ultimately though it does come down to Brad Pitt, and whilst the popular actor has never been out of fashion, it should be appreciated that his films of late have been extraordinary, films that have done the actor justice in what could be called the second phase of what has been a long and industrious career.

Bullet Train is fun, it is deep, it is imaginative, and in a period of cinema’s history where the trend of white washing from the original source is rightly being re-examined, Bullet Train does give the audience the freedom to co-exist and revere the setting in the same insightful movement.

A top-notch film, David Leitch’s sense of momentum never ceases to encourage and amaze.

Ian D. Hall