Bullet Train (2022)

Full disclosure, I watched this on a trans-Atlantic flight where I was looking for a diversionary movie that did not require much in the way of contemplation, to ease my way through dinner and off to sleep for ideally several hours before landing at my destination. This movie fit the bill perfectly. I read another review that characterized it as slow in spots but amusing for a reasonably good portion of the movie, which I would agree with. This is is an action film that could easily have been an animated movie, and often looks and feels like one. There is a briefcase that several people on a bullet train crossing Japan are trying to get their hands on, and everyone, it seems, is willing to kill to get it. Brad Pitt stars as Ladybug, a former assassin ordered to board the train, steal a briefcase, and get off. He's replacing another assassin who became unavailable at the last minute, and he refuses his handler's advice to carry a gun because he just got out of anger management and has renounced killing. The host of characters play out their parts with aplumb and it really is an occasionally silly, occasionally bloody but mostly entertaining movie.