People who rabbit on about "high speed rail" all the time conveniently forget to mention the hitman problem. In rail-happy Japan, we now learn, passengers are more likely to encounter a knife in the neck or a swat in the chops with a metal attaché case than to arrive safely at their destination. Some wretched souls have been found with tears of blood running down their lifeless cheeks and nothing more is ever heard about them. There are also snakes, somehow. These shocking facts are finally acknowledged in Bullet Train, the new Brad Pitt movie, although the number of viewers able to make heads or tails of the story they tell is likely to be severely limited.
Pitt is our eyes and ears here: a onetime assassin, code name Ladybug, who is transitioning from all-killer-all-the-time to a gentler, more thoughtful sort of operative, the kind who finds a use for phrases like "the toxicity of anger." We meet him wandering around Tokyo's late-night yakitori district with a look of amiable bewilderment on his face and a cheap bucket hat tugged down on his head. He's just received a new assignment from his faraway controller, Maria (Sandra Bullock), who lives in his earpiece. The job: Get onboard the next Shinkansen, or bullet train, to Kyoto, find and secure a certain briefcase, and get back off. Sounds simple.
