Entertaining and gripping in all the right ways, Netflix’s “Carry-On” is the surprise engaging thriller treat of the holiday season. Directed by Jaume Collet-Serra, the filmmaker steps back from some of his recent blockbuster misfires (“Black Adam,” “Jungle Cruise”), and retreats to his bread and butter of simple and contained, often single-setting thrillers. But perhaps it’s less of a sanctuary and more of a regroup and rethink because “Carry On” is easily Collet-Serra’s best film, or at least, his best since “The Shallows.”
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It certainly doesn’t hurt that the film features a very taught screenplay by T.J. Fixman and two commanding leads who are terrific in their respective roles. Not disguising its ‘Die Hard” influence—an ordinary man in the middle of extraordinary circumstances who rises to the occasion—“Carry-On” is also a Christmas movie set during the busy holiday travel season on Xmas eve. And Collet-Serra’s “single-setting” here is an airport.
Taron Egerton stars as Ethan Kopek, a young, soon-to-be father TSA agent who’s blackmailed into letting a deadly nerve agent onboard a flight thanks to a mysterious traveler and unmerciful terrorist (Jason Bateman).
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Before that crucial turning point, however, “Carry-On” takes the time to set the stage and stakes for Ethan and paint the picture of this protagonist in a manner that goes a long way in creating great drama. His girlfriend (a stand-out Sofia Carson), Nora, an airport operations director, is pregnant and they’re excited for their future. But something is still amiss in the underachieving Ethan, who is essentially sleepwalking through life, and his girlfriend knows he’s not living up to his full potential—a truth he’s grappling with too, but trying to bury and move on from, convincing himself he’s “happy.”
Ethan’s backstory is that he essentially flunked out of the Police Academy, a personal disappointment he keeps lugging around in his pocket like an unhealthy keepsake of failure; a little, but resonant and relatable quality that sets up a competent character as also flawed, insecure and as human as the rest of us. This is his, pardon the pun, baggage, and the way he slowly overcomes his self-doubt through trial and error—two steps forward, three steps back—is textbook solid character screenwriting.
But Ethan’s uncertainty about his job, carer and future is rudely interrupted when an apparently lost earbud finds its way to him during bag screening. Putting the headphones in, Ethan is quickly and disarmingly threatened by this disembodied voice and sinister figure who makes an alarming offer: “One bag for one life.”
The threat and extortion are explained: if Ethan does not let a certain bag go unnoticed through airport security, his girlfriend dies. Through a series of accomplices, working for Bateman’s mystery character (one of them played by Theo Rossi), he knows everything about him already, and the best, most intense moments of the film are just a carefully blocked-out tense conversation: Bateman perfunctorily explains his menacing intentions while an anxiety-riddled Egerton listens in sweaty terror to his horrifying and limited options.
And man, this is some of the best, most underrated moments of what cinema can do and do so effectively: a deceptively simple choreograph of a man intently listening to the disturbing threats and coercions that may irrevocably change his life forever.
What Bateman’s character doesn’t contend for, however, is Ethan’s resourcelessness and the intuitive instincts he has that would have made him a great detective or police officer. “Carry-On” from there essentially then becomes very “Die Hard”-y, Ethan going above and beyond and going through extremely dangerous circumstances to stop a Novichok bomb attack which will be a catastrophic disaster. But it’s all rooted in character and is all deeply satisfying. In the parlance of the kids, we used to be a proper society, that knew how to craft a taut little thriller in a simple, subtle mode that is incredibly successful, and so kudos to Collet-Serra and all involved for remembering the basics are often underestimated—much like the way the underestimation of Ethan’s determination is the extremists’ fatal flaw.
“Carry-On” has exactly one terrible moment that sticks out like a sore thumb, and it’s exactly why some of Collet-Serra’s recent films have been rather terrible. He simply cannot resist the urge to get fancy in what is a stripped-down, gritty thriller that’s raw and human. It’s a car sequence; Danielle Deadwyler’s LAPD detective Elena Cole, investigating some of the conspiracies around this attempted terrorist attack, gets into it with a man impersonating a Federal agent and wrecks her car. Collet-Serra cannot help but dress it up as some technically-savvy/part CGI extravaganza where the car flips all around and the camera stays locked in with the chaos, and it is absolutely unnecessary and 100% detracts and distracts from the movie. It’s brief enough that it’s forgivable, but some kind producer or friend with some tough love would tell him his movie did not need that moment at all, and this superfluous visual performativeness is what’s hurting his other movies.
It should also be said that both Egerton and Bateman are first-rate in these roles, the former really knowing how to lean into Ethan’s lack of self-confidence, his palpable anxious dread, and his desire to be a comeback kid that shouldn’t be ruled out. Bateman is also really mastering the simplicity that has marked his entire career, this time leveraging an icy villain who is so dispassionate about it all, he’s all the more frightening for it (he’s not a terrorist, he insists, he’s a terrorism facilitator who just wants to get paid because sometimes that’s all we have left in this shitty, corrupt world).
“Carry-On” is not going to change cinema and may be forgotten next week, but I can almost guarantee you that almost every regular family in America is going to be watching it over Christmas break at some point, it’s going to be a huge hit for Netflix and this smart, well-crafted thriller is going to boost Collet-Serra’s career beyond just average B-movie helmer. That’s not necessarily the hallmark of an amazing film, per se, but “Carry-On” works because it keeps it simple, because of its no-fuss-no-muss approach and two actors who can really elevate compelling material. Sometimes that’s enough. [B+]
