"Bullet Train": Quentin Tarantino Lite on the Orient Express
& Fame-for-fame's-sake in "Not Okay."
(New releases)
“It is a tale … full of sound and fury, signifying nothing,” the murderous MacBeth says, in one of Shakespeare’s most famous soliloquies.
Sure, it can be a bit pretentious — sorry, not sorry! — to quote The Bard in the course of a review of a disposable comic action movie. But that’s the thought that comes to mind while watching “Bullet Train,” and during the hours following.
David Leitch’s action thriller, which might be thought of as Quentin Tarantino Lite on the Orient Express, is fast and furious, brimming with quirky characters, funny quips, pop-culture obsessions, offbeat flashbacks and smartly choreographed fights via fists, knives, guns and sundry other weapons.
All that, and a snake on the train, too — there’s a serpent on the loose whose venom has the power to cause victims to bleed from their eyes on the way to a painful death. It’s occasionally exhilarating, when it isn’t dizzying. Eventually, it’s all a bit wearying.
Not unlike new Ryan Gosling spy-thriller franchise starter “The Gray Man,” those two hours-plus of frenzied activity are likely to drain out of your brain before you’ve even had the chance to pass the popcorn stand on the way out of the theater. What’s the frequency, Kenneth?
Zak Olkewicz’s screenplay, adapted from the Japanese novel by Kotaro Isaka, is high concept: 1) Load up a high-speed train, traveling from Tokyo to some danger zone beyond, with an assortment of watchable baddies all gifted with a particular set of skills — namely, they’re mostly hired guns with expertise in the art of knocking off their targets and getting away clean. 2) Set them loose. 3) Watch ‘em go and cross your fingers!
Brad Pitt, appealing in another of his nominally easygoing, aww-shucks roles, pops up just after the start of the movie, winding his way through Tokyo’s neon wonderland of flashing video screens, restaurants, shops and bustling city life. Artfully unshaven and wearing a floppy hat over long, stringy hair, he’s strutting to the beat of the Bee Gees’ disco anthem “Stayin’ Alive.” Any resemblance to John Travolta walking the streets of Brooklyn in “Saturday Night Fever” is strictly intentional.
Pitt is a mercenary with the code name Ladybug, embarking on his first contract assignment after a hiatus. And he’s grown tired of all the hit-man hassles associated with his day job: “No more sociopaths, no more maniacs. Just nice people,” he tells his handler (Sandra Bullock), heard via cellphone but not seen until the last few minutes of the movie. His mission: Retrieve a silver briefcase loaded with some type of valuable contents. Any resemble to the mysterious briefcase in Tarantino’s “Pulp Fiction” is strictly intentional.
A peaceful, easy job? No such luck, naturally. Within minutes of boarding the speeding metal capsule, Ladybug finds himself clashing with toughies galore: Cockney motormouth goofballs Lemon (Bryan Tyree Henry), who sees life through the lens of children’s story Thomas the Tank Engine, and Tangerine (Aaron Tyler-Johnson), who squabble like an old married couple; The Prince (Joey King), a deceptively fragile-looking woman with a China doll porcelain face who declares, “I’m not in someone else’s story. You’re all in mine”; Wolf (reggaeton star Bad Bunny) and the Hornet (Zazie Beetz).
While dispatching various opponents, Ladybug loves to wax philosophical and talk about how, you know, meditation has changed his life. “Let that be a lesson in the toxicity of anger,” he says after one such deadly encounter. And later: “Hurt people hurt people.” Let’s get zen.
Leitch (“John Wick,” “Atomic Blonde”), his cast members and some action-hero types making cameos certainly appear to be having a blast with this breezy bit of controlled chaos. Unfortunately, the bloody good times result in a movie that might have been infectious but instead feels kind of annoying, like a promising party that went on long after the fun fizzled out.
(126 minutes; R; Critic’s grade: C+; In theaters)
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Annoying, in a manner meant to be breezy, too, might be the best way to describe Danni (Zoey Deutsch) the twentysomething protagonist of “Not Okay,” a comic cautionary tale about the pitfalls of Internet fame.
In fact, the film, written and directed by rising-star filmmaker Quinn Shephard (“Blame”), comes with a jokey warning about “flashing lights, themes of trauma and an unlikable female protagonist.”
As played by the winsome Deutsch, though, Danni is moderately likable, if possessed of a neediness that sometimes crosses over into creepy-parasite territory. A photo editor at a hip and trendy Manhattan publication called Depravity, she’s in need of a friend, a boyfriend, a challenging job and, most of all, some attention from a world in which she’s routinely ignored.
One fake trip to Paris later, where she appears to have survived a deadly terrorist attack, and the girl who once complained about having “missed” 9/11 because she was out of town is a social media sensation, famous for being famous.
Befriending another trauma victim, teenager Rowan (Mia Isaac), who survived a school shooting, Danny climbs even higher up the fame ladder. She gains a job as a writer with a big office at her magazine, wins attention from sky-high poser Colin (Dylan O’Brien, channeling his inner Pete Davidson) and scoring a high-profile speaking engagement.
What goes up must come down, and Danni eventually is outed. Will she find redemption and emerge a better person, complete with genuine empathy? “Not Okay” asks the million-dollar question: Does it matter?
(140 minutes; R; Critic’s grade: C+; Hulu)
©2022 by Philip Booth. All rights reserved.