‘Bullet Train’ a violent thriller

Parents need to know that Bullet Train is an extremely bloody, violent action thriller starring Brad Pitt about criminals and murderers who are trying to both kill each other and stay alive on a high-speed Japanese train.

It’s weightless but well-made and a fun ride, if you’re mature enough for the content.

Violence is almost comically intense, with guns and shooting, heavy blood sprays, knives, swords, and punching.

Characters die, and a child is in peril.

In Bullet Train, a career criminal codenamed “Ladybug” (Brad Pitt) has spent some time working on self-reflection and trying to live a more peaceful existence.

But now he’s preparing for his latest job: snatching a briefcase from a bullet train that runs between Tokyo and Kyoto. Unfortunately, the gig isn’t so simple.

“Tangerine” (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) and “Lemon” (Brian Tyree Henry) are supposed to deliver the case, along with a warlord’s son (Logan Lerman), but they lose both.

And “The Prince” (Joey King) is blackmailing a man (Andrew Koji) into helping assassinate the warlord, who’s also known as The White Death.

Meanwhile, someone is poisoning people with snake venom, and a killer is seeking revenge.

Is all of it somehow connected?

And can Ladybug get out of this mess alive?

With gleefully excessive violence and little depth, this oversized action-thriller executes its many moving parts with skill, but it’s Pitt’s dopey, languid performance that keeps the balance. Directed by David Leitch and based on a novel by Kotaro Isaka, Bullet Train is a little like a multiple-character heist movie like Ocean’s Eleven or Logan Lucky, except that the “why” and “how” is less important than the “what,” which in this case is the fight scenes.

The movie delights in pitting its many trained fighters and killers against as many obstacles as possible. Suspense is generated when characters sometimes come back from certain defeat (such as one who’s thrown off the train, jumps back onto its tail end, and then tries to work his way back inside) or when a previously planted item — like a poisonous snake — pops up again.

Thunderous, non-stop movies filled with constant fighting can get exhausting — see Free Fire, for example — but director Leitch, a former stunt performer and coordinator who turned to filmmaking with John Wick, has a good sense of rhythm. His stops and starts, flashbacks and reveals all effectively build a rhythm that flows and doesn’t feel oppressive.

Run time: 152 minutes

MPAA rating: R

MPAA explanation: strong and bloody violence, pervasive language. – commonsensemedia.org

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