By Roberto Leal
Bad Bunny born, Benito Antonio Martínez Onasio has a small, but memorable role in the early scenes of Bullet Train. He plays Wolf, a vengeful, menacing assassin hell-bent on getting his howling revenge for the murder of his bride, Mrs. Wolfe, played by Andrea Muñoz (Hold Me Together) who gets killed — and way too little on-screen time, along with everybody in the wedding party.
Columbia’s Bullet Train offers up a huge serving of high-speed, sprawling, chaotic, rock‘n, sock‘em, claustrophobic, action-adventure express ride on the Japanese railways with a generous dollop of comedy. It stars Brad Pitt, who had his action-adventure creds stamped and certified long ago in such films as, Fight Club, Troy, Ad Astra and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. Pitt’s character, Ladybug, thinks he’s on an easy “snatch and grab” caper to recover a valuable brass briefcase. But when he boards the fast-moving train, he discovers to his shock and awe there are five assassins who also for various completely undisclosed motives and agendas, also want the same brass briefcase and during the movie they find they all have something in common.
The comedic elements in Bullet Train add a perverse playful touch to the non-stop action and gives what would otherwise be a trainload of irredeemable bad guys, a much welcome patina of humanity. Bullet Train also marks the film debut of Puerto Rican reggaeton superstar, Bad Bunny as one of the bad guys.
Wolf hops on the train and mistakenly thinks Ladybug is his wife’s killer. A fight ensues and Wolf meets a sudden departure from the film. Although Bad bunny, as Wolf, is defanged all too early in the story, his appearance serves its purpose as a teasing cinematic appetizer for the big screen main course he will be presenting in an upcoming Marvel Universe comic book superhero film, El Muerto.
The screenplay by Zak Oklewicz (The Last Voyage of the Demeter), treats us to some very colorful villains with engaging personalities almost as complicated as the plot itself. One especially amusing pair of killers, Tangerine, and Lemon are called “The Twins:’. Tangerine, played by Aaron Taylor-Johnson (Kick ass, Nowhere Boy) and his “twin” (although they look nothing alike) Lemon, played by Brian Tyree-Henry (Widows, Hotel Artemis) provide much of the humor in Bullet Train with their bickering, profanity-laced Abbott & Costello like routine. Meanwhile, the lovely Joey King (The Conjuring, The Kissing Booth) as the lethal and dangerous, Prince, treacherously lends her venomous (figuratively and literally) deceptive femme fatale charms to the deadly proceedings.
Despite all the mayhem, violence and turbulence occurring primarily in the confines of a train, director David Leitch (Deadpool 2, Atomic Blonde, John wick) manages to unwind and reveal the complicated, interconnected storyline at a constant pace equal to the speeding train it is happening on. Director Leitch ties up all intersecting plots with a tumultuous, explosive, screeching, karmic, train derailing end that leaves the audience breathless and forever wary of ever getting on a bullet train in Japan.
From Bullet Train Dead to El Muerto
Bullet Train was just a teaser for Bad Bunny’s budding movie career. Bunny has been cast to play El Muerto, the first Latino superhero role in the Marvel Universe film. A muscle-bound, spandex leotard-clad superhero known as Juan–Carlos Estrada Sánchez in the comic books. El Muerto is a luchador who inherits his powers from his Mexican-inspired Lucha Libre mask, which gives him superhuman strength. In the comics, El Muerto has gotten into the ring with Spider-Man himself.
Bad Bunny accepts the challenge with his customary soft-spoken confidence. “I’m very excited, happy, and proud,” he says. “I think people are gonna be proud about my work.” No worries there. He will doubtless bring the same energy and talent to the role of El Muerto that he does to his insanely popular music. He will take his well-deserved place in the profitable repertory cast of Marvel Universe superheroes with the joyous ringing sound of ca-ching, ca-ching- ca-ching at the box office registers set to the pulsating Latino beat Bad Bunny’s “Me Porto Bonito” hit reggaeton tune.
Bullet Train is currently screening in theaters and Netflix, Hulu, or Amazon Prime Video
Release date for El Muerto is set for Jan 2024.