Certificate: 15
Running Time: 119 mins
UK Distributor: Netflix
UK Release Date: 13 December 2024
Taron Egerton, Jason Bateman, Logan Marshall-Green, Sofia Carson, Danielle Deadwyler, Theo Rossi, Dean Norris, Sinqua Walls, Josh Brener, Joe Williamson, Curtiss Cook, Tonatiuh Elizarraraz, Gil Perez-Abraham
Jaume Collet-Serra (director), T.J. Fixman (writer), Dylan Clark (producer), Lorne Balfe (composer), Lyle Vincent (cinematographer), Elliot Greenberg, Krisztian Majdik and Fred Raskin (editors)
A TSA agent (Egerton) is blackmailed into allowing a dangerous package onto a Christmas flight…
Every Christmas, we always seem to get at least one new film trying to be the next Die Hard, with its unexpected combination of festive themes and imagery with hard-knuckle masculine action. Last year, it was John Woo’s dialogue-free Silent Night. The year before, it was Violent Night (aka the film that dared to ask: what if Die Hard was an ACTUAL Christmas film?). Now it’s Netflix’s turn with director Jaume Collet-Serra’s Carry-On, which I would say is just Die Hard in an airport, except Die Hard 2 is already Die Hard in an airport.
So, what does that make this silly yet entertaining movie? Nothing more than just that: silly, yet entertaining.
Taking place at LAX on Christmas Eve, the film focuses on Ethan Kopek (Taron Egerton), a lowly TSA officer who’s facing the busy crowds trying to board their holiday flights, while his pregnant girlfriend Nora (Sofia Carson) is overseeing the similarly hectic check-in. Ethan’s feeling a little deflated, stuck in a dead-end job with few prospects after failing to make the LAPD, but all of that changes when he receives and is required to insert an earpod. On the other end of the line is a mysterious traveller (Jason Bateman) who gives him a simple instruction: allow a particular bag, packed with a deadly nerve agent, through security or else Nora gets a bullet in her head, courtesy of the traveller’s ever-watchful partner in crime (Theo Rossi). Forced to comply, even if it means doing the unimaginable, Ethan is thrust onto a deadly path that could well see hundreds of innocent passengers die if he doesn’t act fast.
The movie is far from sophisticated, as T.J. Fixman’s script takes numerous leaps in logic to allow certain events to fall neatly into place. For instance, there’s the fact that airport security, in the midst of their busiest workday, would allow for a shady Jason Bateman-shaped guy wearing a cap and behaving like Tom Cruise in Collateral to pass by without some kind of suspicion in their direction, especially if they’re constantly going to confront Egerton’s hero in closed-off bathrooms, which in reality would actually do the heroics on behalf of Egerton. Then, we have a police detective (here played by Danielle Deadwyler) who is very much the kind of movie cop that takes way too long to piece together the bleedin’ obvious; at one point, it takes them at least two Google searches to figure out what Novichok is, which anyone who isn’t even on the police force could tell you within seconds what that nerve agent can and can’t do. That isn’t even touching upon several other things that come and go at pure convenience, enough to make the events of M. Night Shyamalan’s Trap feel like meticulous clockwork.
But as ridiculous as Carry-On can be – to a point where it could almost start to resemble a very different kind of Carry On film – you are rarely ever bored by how slickly it’s executed. This is a fine return to form for director Collet-Serra, who’s back to making the kind of out-there action-thrillers he became known for with Liam Neeson vehicles like Unknown, Run All Night and the similarly air travel themed Non-Stop. Like those films, Collet-Serra doesn’t seem to much care about placing his stories in any form of reality, and is instead concerned about giving the viewer a fun enough ride that gives them a strong reason to switch their brains off. He shows that here with heightened sequences wherein plastic guns are fired as characters tumble through and about baggage-sorting conveyors, while an assassin driving a repair van runs down a target in the middle of an airport car park (yes, it’s that kind of movie). All the while, the director keeps things engaging with sharp close-up shots set around some equally tight editing that amps up the tension, even in scenes where Egerton’s Ethan is simply sitting at his desk listening to Jason Bateman through an earpod.
As for the Christmas aspect of it all, it is very close to Die Hard in the sense that there is certainly a festive aesthetic all around the action – characters wearing Santa hats, George Michael belting “Last Christmas” on the radio, people randomly dropping the C-word (not that one) into conversations etc – but it’s relatively muted, in order to allow the action to take full precedence. Again, Collet-Serra is such a skilled crowd-pleaser of a filmmaker that he can weave both elements together while still giving audiences the kind of nonsensical good time that they want out of a movie like this, in addition to someone people can put on when they want a neat alternative to the much more Christmassy movies that are always on standby around this time of year. Those looking for their action fix while cosying up on the sofa this Christmas Eve, and who isn’t keen on watching Bruce Willis walk over glass for the fifth consecutive year, will certainly get plenty of that here.
Obviously, Die Hard will always be the go-to example of Christmas action movie spectacle, but Carry-On is a wholly worthy, if less sophisticated, competitor. It’s loud, abrasive, dumb as hell, and makes almost very little sense from the get-go, but with a strong enough thumb on the most reliable action beats, along with heroes and villains who are fun to root for or against (partly because the actors know full well what kind of movie they’re making and are just having fun with it all), it’s an entertaining piece of escapist cinema that most viewers will enjoy if they’ve already exhausted their annual watch of the action classic.
Carry-On is a relentlessly silly yet thoroughly entertaining Christmastime action-thriller that nearly rivals the likes of Die Hard in terms of escapist festive pleasure, thanks to director Jaume Collet-Serra’s crowd-pleasing execution that leans into the script’s ridiculousness and delivers an exciting if dense thrill ride.
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