When you think of action movies with vehicles involved, the usual suspects might include movie giants like “Star Wars” or cinematic masterpieces like “Top Gun” and its sequel. You may even go for the lesser-known ones like “2012” or “Speed.”

However, theatergoers were recently treated to a new action-packed movie that takes place on a train. “Bullet Train” is an action-comedy film directed by David Leitch (“Deadpool 2”). The film comes from a screenplay by Zak Olkewicz (“Fear Street: 1978”), and produced by Antoine Fuqua (“The Guilty”), who initially had the idea for the film. It is based on the 2010 novel “Maria Beetle” by Kōtarō Isaka (“Remote Control”). 

The movie tells the story of a man by the codename of Ladybug (Brad Pitt, “The Lost City”) who is given the task of boarding a bullet train in Japan to retrieve a briefcase filled with hundreds of thousands of dollars and get off the train without being spotted. However, Ladybug believes that he has some sort of “bad-luck curse” which leads to him taking a break from his work until now.

However, the job is not going to be a walk in the park, as other assassins are not only looking for the same case, but have other jobs which will lead to combat. There are quite a few comedic scenes and characters, which is unsurprising, as this movie was also written by people who had worked on the “Deadpool” series.

Two of these characters, whose codenames are Tangerine (Aaron Taylor-Johnson, “The King’s Man”) and Lemon (Brian Tyree Henry, “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse”) both come from Europe and are tasked with escorting antagonist the White Death’s (Michael Shannon, “Knives Out”) son (Logan Lerman, “The Perks of Being a Wallflower”) and the briefcase to their mafia group in Kyoto. Lemon is seen constantly making references to his favorite show when he was kid, “Thomas the Tank Engine.” He would refer to his enemies as “Diesels,” as Diesel in the show was described as being “devious”. 

There are other characters with other codenames who make the movie even more action-packed and worth the watch. There are plenty of twists, and while some of them are unexpected, there were others that lacked that extra oomph. 

An exception to this includes the mystery behind a character in the movie whose codename is “Prince.” At first, it is revealed that “Prince” was responsible for pushing a father’s son off a building and the father was told that the person who pushed his son was on the train. However, the revelation of their true identity makes for a great twist on the situtation.

Meanwhile, an important theme is learned through Ladybug, that being that it is not luck that decides what happens in life; it is fate. Fate can be altered but cannot be stopped. 

Image from Sony Pictures Entertainment via YouTube