Director: Jaume Collet-Serra
Writer: T.J. Fixman
Stars: Taron Egerton, Jason Bateman, Danielle Deadwyler
Synopsis: A mysterious traveler blackmails a young TSA agent into letting a dangerous package slip through security and onto a Christmas Day flight.
After failing to make his mark on blockbuster cinema with the sauceless Jungle Cruise and Black Adam, which genuinely changed the hierarchy of power in the DC universe, but not in the way its lead star envisioned, Jaume Collet-Serra finally returns to mid-budget entertainment with Carry-On. Sadly, such a thrilling picture has been relegated straight to Netflix with little to no fanfare by the streamer in giving it the theatrical release it deserves. After all, Collet-Serra’s string of theatrical action films with Liam Neeson ranks high as some of the best mid-budget fare of the last decade, so it’s only natural that it should be out in as many cinemas as possible.
However, since Netflix doesn’t care about the perennity of this artform (as evidently illustrated in being hesitant on giving Greta Gerwig’s The Chronicles of Narnia a wide IMAX release), one has to contend with watching this great movie primed for the big screen on a television. It is truly a marvelous piece of filmmaking that would go gangbusters in the 1990s, especially in how it constantly harkens back to Steven Spielberg’s aesthetic and pace (think of The Terminal as a main point of reference). And what would you know? Amblin Partners produced this film, which is part of a first-look deal with Spielberg’s company and Netflix, to produce and release at least one movie per year. Bradley Cooper’s Maestro was the first, Carry-On is the second, and Chris Columbus’ The Thursday Murder Club will be the third in 2025.
Carry-On doesn’t reinvent the wheel, nor does it have to. Collet-Serra is such a stylistically astute filmmaker that he efficiently pulls us into the busiest day of the year in one of (if not) the busiest airports in the United States: LAX on Christmas Eve. Before that, however, he attempts to develop a compelling relationship between its protagonists, Ethan Kopek (Taron Egerton) and Nora Parisi (Sofia Carson). However, it doesn’t really work. The performances are perfunctory, the chemistry is non-existent, and every single ounce of dialogues seemed to have been written by someone who has just learned what a “dialogue exchange” is.
In fact, the first twenty minutes or so of Carry-On are pretty rough. How Collet-Serra and writer T.J. Fixman represent Ethan’s introductory arc is pitifully clichéd, especially when the (justifiably) personal stakes are set up in a rather haphazard way: Ethan’s girlfriend is pregnant, and he desperately wants to get a promotion to care for his baby, to which his boss (wonderfully played by Dean Norris) refuses but is willing to give him a shot to screen luggage at the airport, which he has not done before.
Once this predictable and rather dull introductory section is out of the way (including a cold open that belongs in a completely different film and gives Carry-On a surprising direct-to-video sheen), the real movie begins. Ethan wasn’t supposed to work in luggage today. It’s only because his superior wanted to see what he’s made of that he replaced his friend, Jason (Sinqua Walls), who was initially going to be the target of a mysterious, nameless traveler (played by Jason Bateman). Now, it’s Ethan who is at the front and center of a call with this traveler, tells him to do nothing when a carry-on luggage containing a nerve agent known as Novichok is screened, or else Nora will die.
Ethan, the hero he is poised to be, cannot “do nothing” and frequently attempts to trick the traveler, but doesn’t know a nameless watcher (played by Theo Rossi) observes his every move. Parallel to this story, LAPD detective Elena Cole (Danielle Deadwyler) investigates a corrupted audio recording that may expose what is currently happening at the airport, under the TSA’s nose. Like his 2014 film Non-Stop, Collet-Serra illustrates Carry-On in the classical sense of the term, with most of its emotional beats telegraphed from the start. We know Ethan will ultimately triumph over evil, no matter how intricate the traveler’s setup is, which is poised to cause shocking setbacks.
What compels us to watch this movie until the very end is how Collet-Serra refines his visual language to the fullest extent, creating larger-than-life setpieces to heighten the stakes and tension. Such a simple story could’ve been clinically aestheticized, which would’ve been another cog in the Netflix algorithm. But Collet-Serra is not that kind of director, as he illustrated in Orphan and his numerous Liam Neeson collaborations, not so much in his large-scale blockbusters, which seem directed by committee than with the singular sense of style that few directors who tasked to helm mid-budget actioners will do.
That’s what makes something like Carry-On special. A confrontation inside a moving car between Cole and Agent Alcott (Logan Marshall-Green) could’ve been hacked to bits. However, Collet-Serra and cinematographer Lyle Vincent stimulate our senses by moving the camera 360 degrees, in and out of the car, while Wham!’s Last Christmas blares on the speakers.
It’s pure kinetics, which Collet-Serra manages effortlessly in a scene like this. It involves audience participation and puts us in the edge of our seats, especially when the camera always thinks about how the audience will perceive a specific action set piece. He’s also well in his element when capturing Taron Egerton running like Tom Cruise inside the airport, from one place to the next, or on the tarmac as he attempts to board the plane during the movie’s thrilling climax. There’s a real sense of excitement whenever Egerton runs fast, or the camera begins to move slightly when a new development arises, furthering our sense of immersion inside the airport on this very busy, and extremely chaotic day.
It’s also when Egerton shines the most, as a paranoia-riddled TSA agent whose incessant stress leads him to make unforgivable decisions he cannot explain to his co-workers or superiors. Everyone is in danger if he doesn’t listen to the traveler, who doesn’t have any tangible motivations for wanting to poison a plane, until Cole uncovers a geopolitical plot when they realize who will be on that plane. The traveler is tasked to do something through a mysterious organization that doesn’t get as fully developed as it should, but that is completely secondary to the fact that he doesn’t ask questions as long as he gets paid.
What’s most compelling is how he manipulates Ethan (and eventually someone else) into doing his bidding with zero remorse whatsoever. At first, Collet-Serra smartly doesn’t reveal the antagonist’s face (although his voice very much primes us that it’s indeed Jason Bateman) until one of Ethan’s closest colleagues gets killed, which profoundly shifts their exchanges via an earpiece. At that moment, the traveler reveals himself to Ethan, forever changing the dynamic between protagonist/antagonist. He has little reason to do what he’s about to do beyond getting paid, which makes him a rather ruthless villain. After all, he has nothing to lose as long as Ethan does nothing and the Novichok is on the plane. He can kill anyone and will never feel remorse for what he did. The ultimate objective it’s what’s most important for him.
Perhaps we could’ve gotten a deeper exploration of who he was hired by, but Collet-Serra is explicit that it doesn’t matter. What matters is how Ethan foils this plot and overcomes each hurdle he faces. That’s what attracts us to watch the movie, which becomes more exciting by the minute once the parallel storylines between the TSA plot and police investigation coalesce. It also helps that Deadwyler is having tons of fun playing a detective who will stop at nothing before her theories are proven correct, even if she is facing her own set of challenges.
Collet-Serra taps into a side of Deadwyler we haven’t seen on screen before, interestingly contrasting with the emotionally vulnerable and nuanced turn she gave as Berniece in Malcolm Washington’s The Piano Lesson. In a movie like this, her interior emotions needed to be at the front and center of her performance. In Carry-On, it’s all about the adrenaline rush she gets in solving such an indecipherable case like this one. Both Egerton and Deadwyler have terrific chemistry together once they are eventually paired on screen, but the same can’t be said for how boring Ethan’s relationship with Nina is.
It’s the sole narrative thread that dampens Carry-On. A movie like this absolutely needs personal stakes, which is why Ethan first listens to the traveler and does nothing, until he finds out what he is letting in at the airport. But these stakes don’t feel as crucial as when Collet-Serra and Vincent focus their camera solely on Ethan, who progressively descends into torment until he decides to take action, come hell or high water. No one will tell him to sit back and do nothing, especially when he knows what will happen to the passengers if this suitcase goes on the plane. His resolve is far stronger than the traveler thinks.
The antagonist has a rather narrow-minded viewpoint of Ethan, which is part of the reason why he eventually underestimates him. What happens next is Collet-Serra riffing on Non-Stop, positioning their final confrontation inside a plane. It may not reach the same thrills as that movie’s finale, but it’s undoubtedly his biggest morceau de bravoure since then. With flawlessly executed cinematography and minute editing work from Fred Raskin, Elliot Greenberg, and Krisztian Majdik, Carry-On’s climax overcomes some of its screenwriting inconsistencies and finally gives Ethan his time to shine until its last shot could open the doors for something much bigger than LAX.
The movie may not ultimately become a new, Die Hard-esque holiday classic (which is likely why Netflix is releasing it at this time, as counter-programming for Kraven the Hunter and The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim). However, it has allowed Jaume Collet-Serra to get his groove back as an efficient mid-budget filmmaker with enough verve to make a name for himself, in the wake of his weakest efforts in Jungle Cruise and Black Adam. Now that his subsequent films, The Woman in the Yard and a Lily James-led reboot of Renny Harlin’s Cliffhanger, are right up his alley, we’re likely to get more great stuff from a director everyone should know and love in a day and age where an authorial imprint in blockbuster cinema isn’t found as much as it did many years ago.
