Carry-On
Airport security is given a run for its money in a nerve-shredding Christmas treat from Netflix.
Three key elements make up the brilliant basis for this pulse-pumping Christmas thriller. One: Novichok, a nerve agent that is as lethal as it is instantly effective, the deadliest chemical weapon ever devised (and still with no known antidote). Two: an airport packed with 60,000 passengers. Three: it’s Christmas Eve (no, really). That’s all we need to know.
Ethan Kopek (Taron Egerton), working in airport security, is not a fan of Christmas. “It’s a holiday that makes everyone feel they’re not doing it right, no matter what they do. They’re never happy enough, never rich enough, never enough enough.” This particular December 24 is a good day for Ethan, and then not so good. He has just learned that his girlfriend is pregnant, but his request for promotion has been turned down flat. Then, when he perseveres, he is allocated a temporary slot on the baggage-scanning lane to see if he’s up to the task. However, the slot wasn’t meant for him, and he finds himself at the wrong end of a terrorist’s demands.
All he has to do is do nothing and his pregnant girlfriend will live. “One bag for one life,” reasons the stranger in his ear, issuing demands via a hidden earbud. But Ethan still wants that promotion, although he has no idea what he’s up against, or the men who have infiltrated all the crevices of LAX security. Every contingency has been anticipated, even the harebrained notions that Ethan might dream up on the spot…
There are few actors around who are as instantly likeable as Taron Egerton. More surprising is the casting of Jason Bateman as the man at the end of the earbud, an extremely well-informed, calm-as-a-cucumber “freelance facilitator.” He is being obscenely well paid and he has men everywhere – from a sniper outside the concourse to a man in Ethan’s apartment. He’s done this before.
Carry-On opens to the sound of Bruce Springsteen belting out ‘Santa Claus is Comin' to Town’, positing the film as a Yuletide thriller in the vein of Die Hard. The first scene is set in a Christmas tree facility, where the tone abruptly turns dark when the silent, shadowy figure of Bateman sets the whole place alight. Bateman, better known as the wag in a string of romantic comedies, has never been icier than here, playing his ‘facilitator’ with business-like calm and dogged purpose. “I’m the guy you listen to,” he says, with some reason. “And I want you to stop thinking.”
It’s a zinger of a screenplay from T.J. Fixman, pulling in more characters along the way, who put the interests of others beyond their own festive hopes. The director Jaume Collet-Serra is a master of such taut escapism, but this is certainly one of his better treats, right up there with the aquatic nail-chewer The Shallows (2016). The pace never flags, and because Egerton is so adamantly agreeable, we follow his every breath as our own is bated. There are a couple of bum notes, but the premise is so well primed, and the exasperated public surrounding the events so instantly recognisable, that we just get caught up for the slay ride. The next time we check through airport security, we might think twice before glaring at the personnel.
JAMES CAMERON-WILSON
Cast: Taron Egerton, Sofia Carson, Danielle Deadwyler, Jason Bateman, Theo Rossi, Logan Marshall-Green, Dean Norris, Sinqua Walls, Gil Perez-Abraham, Tonatiuh, Curtiss Cook, Joe Williamson.
Dir Jaume Collet-Serra, Pro Dylan Clark, Screenplay T.J. Fixman, Ph Lyle Vincent, Pro Des Diane Lederman, Ed Fred Raskin, Elliot Greenberg and Krisztian Majdik, Music Lorne Balfe, Costumes Shay Cunliffe, Sound Dan Gamache, Ethan Van der Ryn, Erik Aadahl and Jon Greasley, Dialect coach Carter Bellaimey.
Dylan Clark Productions/DreamWorks Pictures-Netflix.
119 mins. USA. 2024. UK and US Rel: 13 December 2024. Cert. 15.