If you know you want to see Brad Pitt’s Bullet Train, for whatever reason, I wouldn’t recommend paying full price. It’s a matinee type of movie at best. In fact, it’s probably more a movie you wait to see on television. That’s because it isn’t very good, of course, though an action comedy that’s shiny and leaves no mark on the memory has its uses in these hard times.

The first trailers for Bullet Train actually made the movie look a lot better than it turned out to be, but that’s because so often there are impressive editors working to cut previews, making them zip along with wonderful kinetic energy that the films themselves lack. It’s a shame, really, because director David Leitch has done excellent work in the action genre in the past. He came up as a noted stuntman and stunt choreographer, and was in fact Brad Pitt’s own stuntman for several films, including Fight Club (1999) and The Mexican (2001). He codirected the first John Wick (2014) and has continued as a producer of that wildly successful franchise, along with directing other action films such as Atomic Blonde (2017).

Plus, there’s an excellent international ensemble cast featuring fine actors like Brian Tyree Henry (Joker, Atlanta, Widows), Hiroyuki Sanada (Avengers: Endgame, Lost, The Ring), and Michael Shannon (Knives Out, Shape of Water), working very hard to break through the movie’s glossy surface to create an impact.