Snakes on a train. Didn’t they do this, already? Oh, no, wait, that was on a plain. Snakes ON A PLAIN. This one is on a train. Yes, okay.
Well, Brad Pitt is in it. That’s good, isn’t it? If you like him. You know, as an actor. I must admit that I don’t know him personally, but he seems like a fairly likeable person. Other people are also in it. They are all on a bullet train, you know, one of those totally awesome Japanese hyper speed trains, that whizzes across that ever-mysterious looking ancient landscape, as well as through some mega-futuristic-looking ultra-cities. Zoom-zoom.
Okay, so, there’s this bunch of killers, some very competent and some, well, let’s be friendly and say ‘not so much’, and they are all after this suitcase, by order of some mysterious uber-evil mob-boss, and his son. Who died, by the way. On the train. And flashbacks, also.
So, the Boomslang is this very poisonous snake, living predominantly in the southern regions of the African continent. Its common name means “tree snake” in Dutch[3] and Afrikaans … boom meaning “tree”, and slang meaning “snake”. In Afrikaans, the name is pronounced [EDITOR’S NOTE: Who gives a damn, Lowlander?] The venom of this vile creature will cause you to bleed out, from the inside out, and kill you within minutes. Very gruesome ones.
Is this a good and clever movie? It probably is. Am I a competent reviewer? Most certainly not. Will that ever stop me from sending my stuff to Goat? Never!
Still with me, over there? Yeah? Are you sure?
Alrighty, then. Are Japanese people weird? Of course not. But yeah, they are. I once read a news article that told of a Japanese train-operator that arrived two seconds ahead or behind schedule, and found it necessary to apologize about that. Over here, in my country, trains just arrive when they do and when they do, we stand together as one, big irritated mass, waiting and wanting to go home, until all those other people have left the train, so we now can take their place. Boomslang, you know?
In my lifetime, I have found that, in general, movies that have Brad Pitt in them are usually pretty good. He is, of course, by no means anything even close to the likes of, let’s say, one BILL MURRAY, because I’m willing to bet nothing at all that Brad Pitt ever did, nor never will, smoke any pot. Like, at all. And that, I think, is a darn shame. He doesn’t know what the fuck he is missing, nor are we, because, who knows, if Brad Pitt DID smoke pot, what kind of movies he could have made, hm?
The proper Japanese name for the bullet train is ‘Shinkansen’. Roughly translated, it comes down to something like ‘the new main line’. Because that’s what it is: a new, Hypertech connection, forever proclaiming our growing dominion over the so-called ‘laws’ of physics, bending and tweaking them more and more, to our own very specific and ever-changing needs. It won’t be long now before it’s here. Singularity, and solitude.
Boomslang, and all that.