David Leitch

When I saw the trailer, I thought (hoped) “The Fall Guy” would be a bit of a “Bullet Train“. Now I see both are from the same director.

“The Fall Guy” is more of an action romcom though, too romcom for my liking. The movie is an ode to the stunt people of Hollywood too. Colt Seavers (Ryan Gosling) is the stunt double for Tom Ryder (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), rapidly rising Hollywood star.

Seavers has a crush on Jody (Emily Blunt), formerly camera woman, nowadays director. This makes a large and not too interesting part of the story.

Ryder goes missing from the set and Seavers is sent out to find him, but Ryder does not want to be found and so you get a lot of action scenes and a descent ‘whodunnit’ story.

Not boring, but it seems to me that Leitch aimed for a larger and more general audience with his latest film.

Brad Pitt returns to the violent action comedy genre as the goofy “Ladybug” who is a former hitman who has retired. He is returning to his old profession though, but he will only do easy jobs, such as picking up a case on a Japanese high speed train (from the title).

But there is also the story of Kimura whose son was pushed off a roof who sets out to find the perpetrator. Also we have Wolf, a Mexican criminal whose family, including his wife, was killed during the wedding. Tangerine and Lemmon are two hip criminals who are also on the train for another job. Needless to say that the storylines get together as the film continues.

“Bullet Train” is a film as we have seen before. Witty dialogues, over-the-top bloody scenes, dark humour, action and a story that unfolds before the viewer. The result is an amusing movie with amusing elements of Japanese culture, Thomas the Train and well-read bad people.