Ethan Kopek is in a rut. He’s worked for TSA at LAX for three years now and still works at entry level. He only works here because his dream job at the LAPD didn’t work out, and he was kicked out before training even started. His fiancé wants him to give his dreams another try, but it’s Christmas Eve and they have just discovered they are pregnant with their first child. On top of that, Ethan is about to have much bigger problems.
An earbud is left unattended on the conveyer and before Ethan can lock it in lost and found, he gets a text: “Right ear, now.” He puts the bud in his ear and a mystery voice makes the following demand: let my colleague’s suitcase through the scanner, or your fiancé dies.
Carry-On draws a lot of inspiration from films like Phone Booth, Die Hard, or Eagle Eye. As in these films, the potential threats increase throughout the runtime, following Ethan as he moves from his TSA conveyor to sprinting through the airport dodging gunshots. The writing though, is not convincing. The characters are paper-thin caricatures of the typical tropes: the honest cop, the damsel in distress, the cold heartless villain, etc. The tension that most viewers would expect from a movie like this is absent, mostly because of the pacing and storytelling (or lack thereof). The bad guys exercise almost god-like powers over the security system and seem to see and hear things to the point where it’s genuinely frustrating to watch. Nothing of substance happens in the plot until almost an hour into the film’s runtime, and it’s hard to suspend your disbelief when the villain barely falls short of reading the main character’s mind.
Taron Egerton is a good actor, and his performance as Ethan is probably the best of the cast. The worst performances were Sofia Carson as Nora, Ethan’s pregnant fiancé, and Jason Bateman as the titular villain. In Carson’s defense, the writing of her character in particular is abysmal, but her flat delivery certainly doesn’t help. Jason Bateman’s performance was the most disappointing for me, especially after seeing him absolutely rock a serious role in HBO’s The Outsider. His performance was so phoned-in that it was almost laughable and sucked all the life out of any scenes between him and Egerton.
The film also suffers from an identity crisis: it isn’t sure if it wants to be an action film or a thriller. Unfortunately, it succeeds at neither. Save for one incredible action shot (taking place in a car set to “Last Christmas” by Wham), the film is just really boring. Shots do little more than follow characters from point A to point B. A lot of the set-ups have absolutely no pay-off or are resolved in such an “oh, never mind” way that it’s hard to stay engaged. It also gets hard to maintain your disbelief when the movie just gets SO silly. For one of the US’s largest airports on Christmas Eve, it sure has a lot of empty rooms and hallways for the villains to talk about their evil plans unnoticed!
What made me the most upset about Carry-On though is that there is an interesting and unique thriller hidden somewhere in this film. With better writing and more engaging action, this could have been a Die Hard-inspired new holiday classic. Instead, it just joins the unending catalog of Netflix Original schlock to be forgotten immediately after release. It’s a shame, especially since it’s such a fun concept. Maybe one day we’ll get the airport TSA version of Phone Booth, but this certainly isn’t it.