Aaron Taylor-Johnson

The Fall Guy, starring Emily Blunt and Ryan Gosling, is a gloriously fun, screwball action film that pokes fun at action films and this, I now know, is my favourite kind of action film. I would even venture that it’s the sort of film that’s crying out to be enjoyed with a big old bucket of popcorn. Go wild with the stuff. I promise I won’t hiss or look daggers at you. This is a popcorn movie. It has that spirit – in spades. Does anyone crash backwards through a plate glass window? Of course they do! As a comedy set in the stunt world, it’s one of those Hollywood films that affectionately sends up Hollywood, like Tropic Thunder or Bowfinger.

Based on the trailers, you’d be forgiven for thinking that Bullet Train was a gritty, serious-minded action thriller in the vein of John Wick. Nothing could be further from the truth: the best way to describe this movie is if Quentin Tarantino and Guy Ritchie co-directed a remake of Murder on the Orient Express. And happily, in the hands of director David Leitch — the talent behind Atomic Blonde and Deadpool 2 — it’s a genre mashup that mostly works. As the film opens, an enigmatic man codenamed “Ladybug” (Brad Pitt) boards one of Japan’s famous “bullet trains,” which travel at high speed and stop at each station for only a single minute. His mission: to recover a mysterious briefcase filled with ransom money and escape before anyone’s the wiser.