A former stuntman and fight choreographer (Ocean’s Eleven, by Steven Soderbergh, 2001; Jason Bourne. The Legacy, by Tony Gilroy, 2012), David Leitch finally chose to put his job to work for his own films. After a little convincing Atomic Blonde (2017) and a more successful Deadpool 2 (2018), Bullet Train strives this time to use, circumvent and explode the constraints of the camera.

This camera is served by the Shinkansen, the Japanese high-speed train, in which, between Tokyo and Kyoto, seven more or less bloodthirsty characters are led to travel. All are charged with a different mission, which connects them to each other. A point that they ignore and will discover, over the course of events, launched at no less than 400 kilometers per hour.

Adapted from the thriller of the same name by Japanese novelist Kotaro Isaka (Presses de la Cité, 2010), Bullet Train immediately suffocates us with a flood of information – some of it in flashback. First about Ladybug (Brad Pitt), a gifted agent, not bad, but flanked by such bad luck that he wants to ease off on his missions. With the exception of this one, apparently harmless, since it consists of transporting a briefcase.

Then, the other characters, whose successive presentations monopolize the first twenty minutes of the film: this time granted to give flesh to each one is the first quality of the film. Among them, Tangerine (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) and Citron (Brian Tyree Henry), two inseparable terrors with approximate efficiency. Their mission? Ensuring the safety of a shaggy young man, Minegishi Junior, son of a dreadful mobster.

Telescoping and bullshit

On board the Shinkansen are also Prince (Joey King), a psychopathic killer, Kimura (Andrew Koji), an alcoholic determined to find the one who killed his son, Elder (Hiroyuki Sanada), father of Kimura, an old sage who watches over the family, The Hornet (Zazie Beetz), a fearsome contract killer. All these beautiful people think they know everything but master nothing, as the rest of the adventure will continue to illustrate: an incredible amount of telescoping and bullshit will lead each other to shoot each other in the legs, even to zigzag, with the means at hand (pistol, saber, kitchen knife, cleaning gel). All orchestrated with precision: David Leitch knows how to do it.

The verve, humor, schoolboy fantasy, the almost systematic defusing of so-called “serious” situations, the cartoonish spirit that had animated Deadpool 2 are here re-staged in a confined space and a time that the director distorts without ever us lose or get bored. Bullet Train holds the balance, led on the rails by a cheerful troupe of actors. First, Brad Pitt, to whom self-mockery, decidedly, fits like a glove.