A Bloated Double Feature: “Bullet Train”/“The Gray Man”

         

A couple of weeks back - doesn’t really matter which couple of weeks since this is being read long after - I sat and enjoyed, for the most part, “Bullet Train.” Later that same day, I tossed a coin (didn’t) and wound up watching “The Gray Man” which had its moments. Both share the pedigree of recent actioners - quippy dialog, not unconvoluted motivations, plot twists that are difficult to care about, charming actors, and high body counts (at some point, I wanted to say out loud, “Yeah, I get it!” But thought better of that).

One is a more self-aware trifle, the other is the first in a series of Jason Bourne wannabes. Both are calculated amusements and one succeeds better as far as tired formulae go.

To wit, a fair amount of “Bullet Train” is a genuine gas. Watching Brad Pitt, Bryan Tyree Henry, Aaron-Taylor Johnson, Joey King, and others square off (sometimes repeatedly) is a lotta fun. Zak Olkewicz’s script based off Kotaro Isaka’s novel is more Guy Ritchie than Tarantino and it’s not just the accents. There’s a lot of flashbacking to buttress the film at hand, no small amount of small talk to render our characters relatable; but as with so many homages like this, the writer doesn’t seem to realize that all the characters sound the same. There’s a homogeneity to the dialog that, while it doesn’t sink the performances, or the film overall, doesn’t do anyone any favors.

Oh, sure, Pitt’s American trying-to-refrain-from-killing hitman has his own cadence, but the script hands everyone pretty juicy and sometimes lengthy-to-drawn-out monologues. And those monologues aren’t all as interesting as they might have appeared on paper. 

The flick is true to genre conventions; action set piece follows action set piece with character beats thrown in between them. The conceit of setting the action on a bullet train going overnight from Tokyo to Osaka is fine (though when I found out that the ride is actually only two and a half hours long, it did strain credulity.) And yes, the back-stories were all interesting enough until they impinged on the momentum stuntman turned director David Leitch was trying to establish. 

There are no flies on the performances; everyone seemed to be trying to do something different or more with the material. Pitt’s laconic hitman is as affable as anyone he’s played. Aaron Taylor-Johnson deserves kudos for channeling something of Tom Hardy’s Bronson into his rendering of his character Tangerine, partner with Brian Tyree Henry’s Orange (don’t ask, it annoyed me the first time out). I am really glad Joey King got a chance to shine as a teenage assassin; given all the talkiness for each and everyone, hers was the most minimalist performance but the one that held more interest because of it. 

Andrew Koji shows up as the dissolute scion of Hiroyuki Sanada’s elder yakuza. Both are fine actors who have been in and deserve better movies, but they are still fun to watch and strut their stuff. Last, Michael Shannon shows up as the big bad and that is always a fine thing. 

Normally, I spend an inordinate time recapping what I’ve seen and trying to pick at what I think are interesting or meaningful thematic points, but there’s not a lot of those here and there is. So. Much. Plot. And subplots and Easter eggs and pop culture references and while all of these are fun, they do not add up to a work that requires much more than, “oh, it was fine. I liked it.” 

Props to Jonathan Cela’s cinematography, though. As he showed with “Atomic Blonde”,  “Deadpool 2”, “John Wick”, and hell, “Max Payne”, he does know how to shoot action sequences. The candy colored palette is also pretty fun and used to good effect. Sadly, though, as I mentioned before, the movie still sags in parts, owing much to a misunderstanding that more words does not always equal better drawn or more engaging characters. 

Oh, and Sandra Bullock is Pitt’s handler throughout, repaying the favor for his appearance in “The Lost City”? She is fine, too. No surprise that she and pit have an easy chemistry and she is a pro. 

If I don’t have too much to say about “Bullet Train”, I don’t have as much or much more to say about “The Gray Man.” 

Look, the Russo brothers get a free pass for, well frankly, much of their work from “Arrested Development” through “Community” and their immense contributions to the MCU and by extension, the movie industry. Christopher Marcus and Stephen McFeeley have a partnership that goes back two decades and much of their work has been exemplary. All of this makes me wonder why “The Gray Man” is such an uninvolving snooze-fest.

All the pieces for a compelling new franchise are in front of us. Ryan Gosling plays a stoic, wise-cracking anti-hero (“Six”) imprisoned for murdering his abusive father and brought in to take down a dangerous mercenary (Chris Evans, about whom more momentarily) as part of an off the books CIA mission. Ana de Armas is on hand as a conflicted agent assigned to keep an eye on Gosling’s Six. Billy Bob Thornton is Six’s mentor and Julia Butters (the scene stealer in “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood…” and deserving a more interesting character) and a bunch of supporting actors on the order of Regé-Jean Page, Alfre Woodard (bless her, she is a joy), Jessica Henwick, and Dhanush (so happy to see him get a solid turn in a U.S. production) are all at the service of a frankly tired and tiresome script. 

Where did it all go wrong? From the get-go, I think. The Russos and Marcus and McFeeley are tonally off in the way that only newcomers are, which is both stunning and disappointing to write. Every beat is calculated and seems based on notes from other, better films. What should be a fun romp (only Chris Evans seems to get that; and oh, does he love playing the douche!) is bogged down by BIG moments that are obviously EMOTIONALLY IMPORTANT but come off as borderline inept in their self-importance and forced sentimentality. Billy Bob Thornton’s demise is more reminiscent of Jeff Fahey and Michael Biehn’s send-off in Robert Rodriguez “Planet Terror” episode from “Grindhouse” than anyone here intended. In fact, I think I laughed. Sorry, guys, but almost every moment in this flick seemed to have been composed from a series of presets on some array of scriptwriting tabs in a spreadsheet.

This isn’t to say that there were some cool moments, which is fine if you want those. However, absent compelling characters or genuinely insightful writing (or even just fun), we just get bupkis. As with “Bullet Train”, I have a difficult time criticizing the performers because the fault does not lie in the stars. Evans walks away with every scene he is in and this is saying something because many of those are shared with Ryan Gosling. But Gosling is burdened with one of the dullest assassins or what-have-you in cinematic history. Marcus and McFeeley could not seem to have decided if Six is supposed to be a reserved killing machine or a chillier John McClane. Having said that, Gosling does seem to come alive in those scenes, but there still is hardly enough to make Six more than a placeholder for wherever the plot is supposed to go.

Even Stephen Windon’s cinematography seems weighted down by the script and this is a guy who knows how to shoot a fleet flick (every “Fast and Furious” movie since “Tokyo Drift”). That said, there is a great and I do mean great, scene where Six is handcuffed exposed to all manner of mercenary and cop in an open square that gives you a sense of where this movie could have gone. 

That this is the team that gave us “Captain America: the Winter Soldier” (let alone all the rest of their MCU work) is nowhere in sight. 

Neither “Bullet Train” nor “The Gray Man” are long films. Both clock in at a smidge over two hours but both drag at various points to a degree that I felt like I was watching much longer movies. I have written before about how much I dislike seeing strong actors wasted and the frustration with scripts that just cannot seem to get it together, but here are two exhibits of both. To be sure, I did enjoy “Bullet Train” much more than “The Gray Man” and some might point out that they are different movies with different aims; however, I would argue the opposite.

Both films are working from the template of contemporary comic book levels of action and implicit or overt pop cultural awareness. Both films are attempting to tell “human” stories within the framework of propulsive action film conventions. One film, however, understands its limitations well enough to wink and nod at us. The other does not. While neither succeeds, ultimately, “Bullet Train” is the more enjoyable ride; “The Gray Man” is exactly that. The latter is not successful in telling a nuanced tale of the shades of morality in the world of espionage, though no doubt that is part of its thematic thrust. It is simply gray; as in the annoying drizzle on a dull day.