{"id":3282,"date":"2022-12-13T15:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-12-13T22:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/?p=3282"},"modified":"2022-11-28T21:43:29","modified_gmt":"2022-11-29T04:43:29","slug":"movie-bullet-train-2022","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/2022\/12\/13\/movie-bullet-train-2022\/","title":{"rendered":"MOVIE: Bullet Train (2022)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><u><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/upload.wikimedia.org\/wikipedia\/en\/thumb\/1\/13\/Bullet_Train_%28poster%29.jpeg\/220px-Bullet_Train_%28poster%29.jpeg\" alt=\"Bullet Train\" width=\"220\" height=\"326\">Bullet Train<\/u><\/strong><br>\nYear: 2022<br>\nRating: R<br>\nLength: 127 minutes \/ 2.11 hours<\/p>\n<p>There&#8217;s something inherently exciting about being trapped on a train with a murderer. It&#8217;s why Agatha Christie&#8217;s <em>Murder on the Orient Express<\/em> has done so well for almost 100 years. In this more modern take, <em>Bullet Train<\/em> (2022) fills this titular high-speed form of transportation with a half-dozen unique killers with ties to a mob boss known as &#8220;The White Death.&#8221; Ridiculous at times, <em>Bullet Train<\/em> is fun and full of action while also being the repeated poster child for the literary concept of <a href=\"http:\/\/author.benjamin-m-weilert.com\/2019\/08\/06\/stranger-things-3-and-chekhovs-gun\/\">Chekhov&#8217;s Gun<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>With Brad Pitt in the leading role as the &#8220;unlucky&#8221; assassin with the codename &#8220;Ladybug,&#8221; a lot of the comedy comes from the coincidental alignment of particular circumstances that pull Ladybug further into the conflict. There are almost <em>Mr. Bean<\/em> levels of close calls for Pitt&#8217;s character as he finds himself tangled up in the parallel plans of his fellow assassins.&nbsp;Of course, the number of mistaken identity tropes in this film almost qualifies it to be Hitchcockian in nature. Because what good story on a train doesn&#8217;t have at least a little mystery involved?<\/p>\n<p>Where <em>Bullet Train<\/em> excels is in the way it shows the audience things that become important later in the story. Sure, there are a lot of little things that might not seem important, but it wasted none of these moments. This may also be with the way this movie was filmed, with the hand-to-hand combat being <a href=\"http:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/2017\/05\/16\/movie-john-wick-2014\/\"><em>John Wick<\/em><\/a> (2014)-like and the big action set pieces focusing on those Chekhov&#8217;s Guns just before it used them for their ultimate purpose. Granted, with so many unique characters, it was a little difficult to keep everything straight at times. But when things lined up, the result was often satisfying.<\/p>\n<p>Fun action with dozens of telegraphed moments, I give <em>Bullet Train<\/em> 3.5 stars out of 5.<\/p>\n<h2><strong><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-647\" src=\"http:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/255px-Five-pointed_star_svg-150x150.png\" alt=\"255px-Five-pointed_star_svg\" width=\"50\" height=\"50\">&nbsp;<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-647\" src=\"http:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/255px-Five-pointed_star_svg-150x150.png\" alt=\"255px-Five-pointed_star_svg\" width=\"50\" height=\"50\">&nbsp;<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-647\" src=\"http:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/255px-Five-pointed_star_svg-150x150.png\" alt=\"255px-Five-pointed_star_svg\" width=\"50\" height=\"50\">&nbsp;1\/2<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><a href=\"http:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/bmw-the-critic\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"820\" height=\"312\" src=\"http:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/BMW-the-Critic-v2.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-2968\" srcset=\"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/BMW-the-Critic-v2.jpg 820w, https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/BMW-the-Critic-v2-300x114.jpg 300w, https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/BMW-the-Critic-v2-768x292.jpg 768w, https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/BMW-the-Critic-v2-640x244.jpg 640w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 820px) 100vw, 820px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Bullet Train Year: 2022 Rating: R Length: 127 minutes \/ 2.11 hours There&#8217;s something inherently exciting about being trapped on a train with a murderer. It&#8217;s why Agatha Christie&#8217;s Murder on the Orient Express has done so well for almost 100 years. In this more modern take, Bullet Train (2022) fills this titular high-speed form [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22,2],"tags":[3107,18,2012,3227,3228,1420,13,8],"class_list":["post-3282","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-3-5-stars","category-movie","tag-3107","tag-action","tag-brad-pitt","tag-bullet-train","tag-chekhovs-gun","tag-japan","tag-movie","tag-review"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3282","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3282"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3282\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3290,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3282\/revisions\/3290"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3282"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3282"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3282"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}