During the opening minutes of Netflix’s new thriller Carry-On, I jokingly posted on social media “A new Christmas classic?”, fully expecting to forget the film almost as soon as it was over. I’m okay admitting when I’m wrong, as I am in this case because what a surprising holiday treat this turned out to be. A welcome throwback to the high-octane thrillers of the ’80s, it’s clear that director Jaume Collet-Serra wants to bring back that Die Hard feeling, and with Taron Egerton attempting his best Bruce Willis, he largely delivers.
Egerton, who will probably always be either that Kingsman guy or that dude who played Elton John, is lowly TSA agent Ethan. After failing the police entrance exam, Ethan is pretty much checked-out at this current gig at LAX. However, he’s got a lot to look forward to. He’s about to become a father with his girlfriend Nora (Sofia Carson), a manager at the same airport. She wants Ethan to reapply, to feel motivated again. Even his colleagues at work (including Dean Norris as his boss and Sinqua Walls as his best friend) can see that Ethan’s heart isn’t in it. But on this busy Christmas Eve, Ethan recommits to the job, even convincing his pal to give up his spot at the baggage security checkpoint to show he’s a team player.
But that initiative Ethan is showing comes with a price. Finding a Bluetooth earpiece, followed by a text telling him to use it, Ethan is commanded by a mysterious Traveler (Jason Bateman) to allow a piece of luggage through security checkpoint without being flagged. If Ethan doesn’t do it, someone will die. And if he tries to alert anyone, someone Ethan cares about will pay the price. “One bag for one life” he’s told, menacingly. With help from his tech accomplice (Theo Rossi) in a nearby van, they’ve discovered everything they need to know about Ethan and they have him dead to rights.
Collet-Serra might be best known for recent studio duds such as Jungle Cruise and Black Adam, but he also directed Liam Neeson in a string of thrillers similar to Carry-On, such as Non-Stop and The Commuter. One can easily imagine that TJ Fixman’s script was written with Neeson in mind, with the lead role aged down considerably with Egerton aboard. Whether that’s true or not, Egerton is a much better fit. He’s still got that everyman quality but he’s young, athletic, and earnest. You can easily believe he’s a good guy who has lost his way a little bit. You also feel his shame at all of the shady things he must do to obey the Traveler’s wishes, including spiking his friend’s coffee to get him busted out of a key checkpoint. But Ethan has no choice. While he tries to push back against the criminal’s demands, he quickly learns the fatal consequences of defiance.
The trick for a movie like Carry-On is to keep finding clever ways to dial up the tension with unpredictable scenarios. For the Traveler, his arrogance leads him to constantly underestimate Ethan, who devises a nifty way to find the ballcap-wearing villain. For Ethan, he is frequently thrown off by the Traveler’s cold demeanor. He claims he’s not a terrorist, just one of the few people in the world who can facilitate things for bad people. We don’t know immediately what’s in the suitcase but we can take a guess. Nor does it really matter in the larger scheme of things.
The film is about Ethan and the choices he must make in a constantly evolving, fluid environment. An airport like LAX has thousands of people moving through it at all times. On Christmas Eve that number probably doubles. It’s impossible for anyone to predict what will happen from moment to moment, and that causes more and more trouble for Ethan and the Traveler. Fixman’s script keeps track of all of the spinning plates in the air, and calculates how the crashing of one impacts another. The introduction of Danielle Deadwyler as dogged detective Elena Cole throws the situation into greater chaos, amping up the excitement even further.
Carry-On is a smartly-crafted, heartstopping thriller that would be a blast to watch on the big-screen, but will do just as well on your living room TV. It keeps raising the stakes without straining credulity, no easy feat. Egerton gives Ethan loads of personality, and Bateman’s smugness comes through both as a threatening voice over the phone and when Traveler’s forced to get his hands dirty. Collet-Serra is doing what he knows best, but is there a better way to get back on track after a couple of blockbuster flops? So maybe Carry-On isn’t going to win any awards or anything like that, if it’s something you can rewatch again and again over the holidays, doesn’t that make it a gift that keeps on giving?
Netflix is streaming Carry-On now.
