In the ranks of films set on the railways, new-to-streaming Bullet Train is strictly stuck in second class – and hey, most of us can travel in that carriage happily enough. Placing a grizzled assassin (played by Brad Pitt) on board the world’s fastest train alongside an international assortment of fellow killers, and letting mayhem ensue, David Leitch’s film is effectively a cranked-up megamix of assorted plot points and set pieces from other action comedies of its ilk, and not unenjoyable on those terms.
Most importantly, it reminds us that you can rarely go too far wrong when you situate your film on a moving train. There’s something about that confinement of space and barrelling consistency of movement that is always pleasing, intensifying urgency of action and intimacy of romance alike. Bullet Train follows in the super-sped-up mode of recent train thrillers such as Bong Joon-ho’s Snowpiercer (2013), a loopy sci-fi romp that houses the post-apocalyptic world’s whole population on the highly stratified carriages of one vast, globe-circling train; and, from 2016, Yeon Sang-ho’s zombie-apocalypse, blood-on-the-tracks hoot Train to Busan (VOD and streaming on Channel 4).
