David Leitch
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Mission: Impossible (1996)
Directed by Brian De Palma
influenced Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw (2019), Atomic Blonde (2017)
Plot Visuals
The main hook — there’s a guy who has a list of every CIA and MI6 operative working undercover in the field — is lifted straight from the first Mission: Impossible movie, much of the narrative lacks clarity and the bad guys are standard issue Eastern Eurotrash heavies.
What worked for Mission: Impossible and Skyfall can work just as fine here.
It’s, as you have guessed, a little Thanos, a little Terminator, with action scenes reminiscent of Mission Impossible’s, so much so you keep expecting Tom Cruise to pop up at every turn.
Despite those car chases — and a particularly “Fast and Furious” one near the end – the movie combines the type of high-tech spy stuff we might see in Bond or “Mission: Impossible” with a straight-up buddy action comedy.
Of all the plots from Mission Impossible movies to rip off, Hobbs & Shaw for some reason decides to borrow the premise of the unanimously agreed upon worst entry, MI2.
The sequence is somewhat reminiscent of Mission Impossible, reliant on slow-mo frames, yet retains the Fast and Furious style editing: close-ups of car parts: tires and rims, engines, and steering wheels, made more enlivening by a mounted backseat angle masquerading as a near-dashboard shot.
Pulp Fiction (1994)
Directed by Quentin Tarantino
influenced Bullet Train (2022)
Visuals Characters Themes
It’s as if the director watched Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction , Doug Liman’s Go , Guy Ritchie’s Snatch , and Joe Carnahan’s Smokin’ Aces and thought he’d try to use Isaka’s source material as the base ingredient in a stew that would be an homage to all of those 1990s and early 2000s crowd-pleasers.
The influence of the Pulp Fiction director can obviously never be overstated, but it’s reaching a point where any pop culture reference in a film is characterised as stealing from Tarantino, and while the irreverent, bolshy nature of Bullet Train will inevitably rub some people up the wrong way, yet it possesses merits and is a lot of fun.
Any major actor’s presence will alter a project; if the above theory carries any weight whatsoever, it’s why this feels thirty percent less like one of those completely disposable post- Pulp Fiction endurance tests of contrived cleverness and pop culture references.
Además, siguen una dinámica parecida a los reconocidos Vincent y Jules de Pulp Fiction , sin llegar a esas interacciones tan míticas que son historia del cine, mezcla al realizador Quentin Tarantino con el británico.
Cuando te sientas a ver “Tren Bala”, la nueva película del director David Leitch, las comparaciones con “Kill Bill” (o Tarantino en general) son inevitables: su mezcla de géneros, curioso humor negro y descarada violencia recuerdan mucho a las piezas más famosas del director de “Pulp Fiction”.
Klingt ein bisschen nach einer Forstsetzung von Pulp Fiction .
What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Sorry, but this type of formula badass-killing-machine thriller inevitably exists in the shadow of the Bourne s and Wick s and, if we want to draw a lady-assassin parallel, add Atomic Blonde and Ava to the list as well.
The film recalls such female-fronted recent efforts as “Atomic Blonde” with Charlize Theron and the best-forgotten “Red Sparrow” with Jennifer Lawrence.
Because the film is produced by Barbara Broccoli and Michael Wilson, the duo behind the James Bond franchise (this is only their third non-Bond production), I was expecting sleek, feline assurance, à la Charlize Theron in Atomic Blonde, Angelina Jolie in Salt or Jodie Comer in Killing Eve.
Even excellent entries into the genre like Atomic Blonde struggle to match the success of a Bond or a Bourne film.
Recent movie flops such as “Anna,” “Red Sparrow” and “Atomic Blonde” (with “The Rhythm Section” inevitably joining the list) are an indication that audiences are rejecting this concept that female assassins—no matter how badass they are in their gun-toting, disguise-changing ways—are still reduced to being sexpots who are following orders from men.
She improves markedly, but she will never be Lorraine in Atomic Blonde (sorry for using another Charlize Theron reference).
Tango & Cash (1989)
Directed by Andrei Konchalovsky
influenced Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw (2019)
Characters Themes Plot
There’s a very Tango & Cash vibe going on where the two beefed up super agents clash and spout insults at each other throughout, which is of course a continuation of their dynamic together in the 8th Fast/Furious movie and the kernel of the idea for this film.
Reminding me a great deal of 1989’s Sylvester Stallone/Kurt Russell cartoonish (if still slightly watchable) showcase Tango & Cash as well as director Stephen Sommer’s 2004 abomination Van Helsing, this is as annoyingly bludgeoning a major Hollywood spectacle as any I can recollect in ages.
(CNN) "Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw" is an awfully long-winded title for a movie with roughly the same plot as the 1989 squabbling buddy vehicle "Tango & Cash," only with bigger -- well, pretty much everything -- and better special effects.
It’s a mismatched buddy picture aspiring to the spirit of 1980s cable staples like “48 Hrs.” or “Tango & Cash” in which the leads spend as much time busting each other’s balls as they spend breaking bad-guys’ heads.
Two things that this Tango & Cash clone has in spades.
Fans of buddy action flicks of the 80s and 90s, such as "Lethal Weapon," "Tango & Cash," "48 Hrs." and "Midnight Run" will be right at home here.
Take, for instance, a scene where Lorraine makes mince meat of a Russian henchman's face behind the screen of a movie theater playing Andrei Tarkovsky's "Stalker."
The film serves up these bravura moments in entertainingly different ways — sometimes with an artsy backdrop (Lorraine battles in a movie theatre while Tarkovsky’s Stalker plays on a large screen behind her), and other times with a gripping simplicity, like when she has to journey through a seemingly abandoned building, shooting and punching her way to safety.
In a debriefing room at MI-6, she narrates the events of the preceding week to a British handler (Toby Jones) and a guest from the CIA (John Goodman): She is sent to West Berlin to recover a list of Western agents called, er, “the List”; makes contact with the punk-rock local station chief, Percival (James McAvoy), who has a side business selling Jordache jeans to East Berliners; stabs thugs at a screening of Andrei Tarkovsky’s Stalker ; and has a fling with a rookie French intelligence agent, Delphine (Sofia Boutella).
It ain’t art, either, even if Lorraine does fight a few villains in silhouette against a Berlin movie screen playing Andrei Tarkosky’s “Stalker.”
There’s one fight sequence where Lorraine takes on a bad guy in front of a movie screen showing Andrei Tarkovsky’s Stalker, which will give a nice laugh to cinephiles like me.
Here, his more pretentious reference is to Tarkovsky (Broughton fights a bunch of henchmen at a screening of Stalker), and there is the suggestion that collapsing, nightmare-ish East Berlin has become like Stalker’s zone: a lawless, borderless place that allows people to live out their desires, to find their true selves — for better or for worse.
The Suicide Squad (2021)
Directed by James Gunn
influenced by Deadpool 2 (2018)
Themes Visuals Dialogue
Some squads are less expendable to others, and “The Suicide Squad” opens in a big, brassy, stylish comedic massacre in the vein of X-Force’s fate in “Deadpool 2.” In fact, “Deadpool” is a bit of a touchstone as ‘TSS’ is nasty and juvenile in its first act, and just as entertaining, comedically offensive and also genuinely annoying and even off-putting at times.
For some time after, it seems like this opening sequence might be little more than a gimmick in the vein of a gag that saw Brad Pitt and others brutally die in Deadpool 2 , and that the film perhaps has no intention of following through on this promise by putting any of the real protagonists in danger.
The Suicide Squad outdoes Deadpool 2 and James Gunn’s Guardians of the Galaxy 1 & 2 in sheer over-the-top explosive action and adult jokes that hit their marks.
What’s truly noteworthy about the violence isn’t how much of it or how graphic (not much worse than 2018’s Deadpool 2 “Death of X-Force” sequence, just for the whole film), but the undertone of it all.
Deadpool 2 already did the same joke, and it was old then too.
Among comic-book movies that mock and subvert the genre, two titles stand above the others: The Lego Batman Movie and Deadpool 2 .
In Atomic Blonde , Charlize and her adversaries finish fights wheezing, staggering around covered in blood, spit, and snot — like Patricia Arquette and James Gandolfini’s bathroom fight in True Romance .
“John Wick” is a touchstone here (Leitch was “Wick’s” uncredited co-director), and there are several visual homages to “True Romance.”
Atomic Blonde at times resembles an extended 1980s music video, and there’s an era-specific movie homage: the white trench coat and shades Theron wears in one sequence recalls Michael Caine’s lethal cross-dresser from Dressed to Kill .
John Wick (2014)
Directed by Chad Stahelski
influenced Bullet Train (2022), Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw (2019), Atomic Blonde (2017), Deadpool 2 (2018)
Visuals
And since the director’s official 2017 feature debut (he gets an uncredited nod for the original John Wick ), his focus has been on slight, action-heavy comedies: Deadpool 2 and Hobbs & Shaw.
It’s not the concept, or the performances which are at fault – maybe it’s the script, the pacing or the editing… The stunts are effective too (which given director David Leitch’s prior career as a stuntman and co-directing John Wick , 2014, isn’t entirely surprising).
Directed by the man behind John Wick, Atomic Blonde and Deadpool 2, David Leitch once again proves himself one of the most adept action directors in Hollywood.
Just like how Keanu Reeves and Charlize Theron became the main selling points in their physically-demanding roles in their respective John Wick and Atomic Blonde movies, director David Leitch made Brad Pitt the centre of attention in Bullet Train.
Directed by David Leitch ( Fast and Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw ; Deadpool 2 ; Atomic Blonde ; John Wick ) from a screenplay written by Zak Olkewicz based on the novel Maria Beetle by Kotaro Isaka.
In a similar sense to what his famed companion Chad Stahelski did with the John Wick series, David Leitch really dives into the deep end with Bullet Train being so clearly influenced by classic Yakuza and Samurai films.
Red Sparrow (2018)
Directed by Francis Lawrence
influenced by Atomic Blonde (2017)
Characters Plot Themes Visuals
But it’s impossible to watch it without comparing it to last summer’s stylish and kinetic “ Atomic Blonde ,” another physically demanding espionage thriller starring Charlize Theron .
With her bottle-blonde locks, facility with a knife and dour Eastern European playground, Jennifer Lawrence's "Red Sparrow" is seemingly the 2018 version of Charlize Theron's "Atomic Blonde."
But Red Sparrow isn't an ass-kicking female-driven flick in the vein of Atomic Blonde, Haywire or La Femme Nikita, or even the action spin on Black Swan that it nods to in its name.
This spy thriller has been marketed as a trashy exercise laden with sex à la Atomic Blonde , but this actually wants to be a slow-burning intellectual spy thriller à la Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy as well.
It chooses not to tread the same ground as Charlize Theron's Atomic Blonde by making the heroine a talented ass-kicker, instead making Lawrence's talent that of seduction, and that does definitely give it a particular sleazy charm that the former film hinted at, but didn't commit to.
Indeed, Red Sparrow contains little of the wit and wisdom of the best of yesteryear’s spy flicks — that gathering includes last summer’s unjustly ignored Atomic Blonde, an espionage caper as stylish as this one is stuporific.
Mission: Impossible II (2000)
Directed by John Woo
influenced Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw (2019)
Plot
Its storyline closely parallels “ Mission: Impossible II ,” and in the last decade and with more those films have leaned into intense pseudo-realistic stunts, where Hobbs and Shaw are something more closely akin to “ Moonraker .”
In a post-superhero summer with no new Tom Cruise Mission: Impossible movie — yet hilariously cribbing almost the same plot as M:I-2 — it was only a matter of time before this pair of broad-shouldered box office beefcakes teamed up.
The Terminator (1984)
Directed by James Cameron
influenced Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw (2019)
Plot
(There are also references to The Terminator, The Lord of the Rings, and Game of Thrones, where the series ending is spoiled.)
While someone like Arnold Schwarzenegger had The Terminator series and Sylvester Stallone had the Rambo and Rocky franchises, Johnson hasn’t come across his defining moment yet.
“We’re being chased by The Terminator!”
I love Idris Elba, but when did the "Fast and the Furious" become "The Terminator"?
His entrance is highly reminiscent of John Travolta's in Saturday Night Fever, as he walks down the streets of Tokyo to the beat of a Japanese cover of Staying Alive .
At least they have the wit to underscore Pitt’s initial appearance with a Japanese artist’s rerecording of the Bee Gees song Staying Alive, complete with feet walking towards camera straight out of Saturday Night Fever (John Badham, 1977).
Gunpowder Milkshake (2021)
Directed by Navot Papushado
influenced by Atomic Blonde (2017)
Visuals Plot Themes
The kineticism of his cinematography is reminiscent of Matthew Vaughn’s Kingsman and the color palette has much in common with David Leitch’s Atomic Blonde , but (unlike the film’s plot) the visual style of Gunpowder Milkshake is too dynamic, rich, and specific to feel derivative.
Written and directed by Navot Papushado and co-written by Ehud Lavski, the film is like John Wick combined with Atomic Blonde and Hotel Artemis .
It’s here that Gunpowder ‘s bloody and comedic temperament truly livens Papushado’s script – co-written with Ehud Lavski – with an almost old school Jackie Chan vehicle approach to the material, rather than the Atomic Blonde -ness we are expecting.
Featuring Karen Gillan in a genuinely butt-kicking role, Papushado’s film joins a growing sub-genre of all-female action outings (see: “Atomic Blonde,” “The 355,” the just-announced “Alice, Darling,” and many more), but its winking sense of humor seems primed to help it stand out.
In recent years, women-lead, sleekly choreographed, over-the-top, stylized bloody and violent action films have quickly been filling up its own sub-genre, from Atomic Blonde to Birds of Prey to Old Guard and arguably even the current moment’s much larger women-led franchise film Black Widow.
It’s a sequence that pulls its influences not from the sleek Atomic Blonde -style thriller Gunpowder Milkshake initially seems to aspiring towards but from an old-school Jackie Chan vehicle, where the ass-kicking is delivered with comedic flair.
It’s a sly nod to a similar scene in Alfred Hitchcock’s “Foreign Correspondent.”
Shortland has layered in visual references to many action and spy movies – including a nod to John Woo’s love of doves, Bond’s love of sliding down escalator railings and Charlize Theron’s down-and-dirty hand-to-hand in Atomic Blonde, not to mention its MCU predecessor Captain America: The Winter Soldier.
At its best, Black Widow echoes a similar vibe to the Charlize Theron vehicle, Atomic Blonde, and encapsulates how much better the film is when it keeps its feet on the ground .
Fights are mostly hand-to-hand and realistically brutal similar to Atomic Blonde, with the environment playing a vital role in every battle.
It’s no small thing to bring together actors who have carried two of the most audacious films of the past decade (Johansson in Under the Skin , Pugh in Midsommar ) but they deserve better than this material, which could only feel fresh to viewers who have avoided Red Sparrow , Atomic Blonde and Killing Eve .
There’s one standout scene where Yelena and Natasha, much like Charlize Theron in Atomic Blonde , tear a city apartment to pieces as they fling assorted homeware at each other’s heads.
John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum (2019)
Directed by Chad Stahelski
influenced by Atomic Blonde (2017)
Visuals
Stahelski, who collaborated on the first "John Wick" with "Atomic Blonde" helmer David Leitch before they went their separate ways, has crafted a corker of a thriller that aims to please multiplex audiences while still dropping some hard-to-miss nods to Buster Keaton and Andrei Tarkovsky.
Like fellow director David Leitch, who worked with him on the first Wick film before shooting the equally ferocious Atomic Blonde , this approach grounds the violence in something resembling authenticity -- at least in terms of the amount of damage inflicted on the heroes.
(Leitch, in the meantime, has gone on to apply the basic John Wick stylistic template to Atomic Blonde and Deadpool 2 .)
Falling somewhere between the body-count foolishness of Shoot ‘Em Up and the cold war seriousness of Atomic Blonde , the plot seems driven by set pieces and style-as-substance more than story considerations.
It’s impossible to overstate how vital Stahelski’s stuntperson résumé – and that of Atomic Blonde ’s (2017) David Leitch, who served as an uncredited co-director on the first John Wick – is to the success of the franchise.
Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)
Directed by George Miller
influenced Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw (2019)
Visuals Themes
Leitch at least knows how to borrow from the best: Shamelessly cribbing from Mad Max: Fury Road in an attack-helicopter-versus-hot-rod chase, he even goes so far as to copy George Miller’s frenzied dolly-ins and close-ups.
His high-speed chase sequences owe something to George Miller’s pace-setting Mad Max: Fury Road, aiming for the thrill of rapid cutting with no loss of clarity.
I thought that in a post-Mad Max: Fury Road and The Raid world, we were finally starting to appreciate stunt performers enough to use them.
The intervening four years have borne witness to a veritable golden age: while Furious 7 was still in theaters, it had to share space with the epochal Mad Max: Fury Road , and in the years since, we've had Mission: Impossibles Rogue Nation and Fallout , John Wick: Chapter 2 , John Wick: Chapter 3 , Atomic Blonde , and that's literally just what came to mind without even pausing to think about other examples, or grappling whether the little fact that they're animated means that Incredibles 2 and Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse don't "count".
Tomorrow Never Dies (1997)
Directed by Roger Spottiswoode
influenced Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw (2019)
Plot
The story, written by the franchise’s writers Chris Morgan and Drew Pearce, borrows from various spy films, such as Tomorrow Never Dies, 1997, Mission: Impossible 2, 2000, and Spectre, 2015.
Hard Boiled (1992)
Directed by John Woo
influenced Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw (2019)
Visuals
The Fate of the Furious saw Jason Statham decimate a plane’s worth of enemies à la Hard Boiled and The Rock push a torpedo away with his barehands; their cinematic match-up as a duo was inevitable.