When George Stephenson first pioneered rail transport in the early 1800s, he revolutionized the way people traveled around the globe. He also unwittingly gave us the setting for several of our most kickass action setpieces, from Train to Busan to 3:10 to Yuma to that one episode of Rick & Morty. The latest entry in the gleefully violent locomotive movie subgenre is Bullet Train, which features a comically stacked cast and promises to be one of this summer’s most absurd films.
Headlined by Brad Pitt, and also featuring *deep inhale* Sandra Bullock, Zazie Beetz, Brian Tyree Henry, Hiroyuki Sanada, Joey King, Michael Shannon and rising wrestling star Bad Bunny, Bullet Train is an over-the-top assassin flick that looks like Lucky Number Slevin meets Free Fire meets Knives Out. It’s helmed by David Leitch, the stuntman-turned-director whose work includes Atomic Blonde, Deadpool 2, and co-directing the first John Wick with Chad Stahelski.
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The highly choreographed action overflows in this first trailer, as we see Pitt square off with Henry in the quiet car, take a knife to the chest from Bad Bunny, and deck somebody in what appears to be ayuru-chara mascot costume. The Bee Gees’ “Stayin’ Alive” soundtracks the clip, and while it’s a little on the nose, subtlety does not seem to be a priority here.
Bullet Train is about five assassins all aboard, you guessed it, a very speedy train. They’re all hunting for a briefcase, with Pitt in the lead as a hired gun trying to turn the other cheek. The script is based on Maria Beetle by Japanese mystery author Kōtarō Isaka, whose books have been adapted into films several times, most notably the terrifically strange 2009 comedy Fish Story.
The trailer was cleverly teased last month, with Pitt narrating a commercial for the fictitious Nippon Speed Line, presumably the company who made the titular bullet train. “You put peace out in the world, you get peace back,” he says, a line that reappears in the full trailer. On the surface, Pitt’s criminal-with-a-conscience character recalls Colin Farrell’s excellent turn in In Bruges or John Cusack in Grosse Point Blank. It’s not the first time he’s played this type of character—in 2012 he starred as a hitman in the esoteric Killing Them Softly, a violent crime movie that also had…something to do with the 2008 financial crisis.
The oddball action comedy is part of a busy 2022 for the 58-year-old Pitt, who also has a supporting role in The Lost City (again teaming up with Sandra Bullock), and appears as Clark Gable in Damien Chazelle’s Babylon.