REVIEW: ‘Carry-On’ Is Netflix’s Answer To ‘Die Hard’

Written by T.J. Fixman (the Ratchet & Clank video games) and directed by Jaume Collet-Serra (The Shallows) for Netflix, Carry-On follows TSA agent Ethan (Taron Egerton) as he fights to outsmart a mysterious Traveler (Jason Bateman) who blackmails him into letting a dangerous package slip onto a Christmas Eve flight at the Los Angeles International Airport. He’s left with two choices – save the passengers in this extraordinary situation or let the luggage slip through and keep your young family safe.

A Netflix original thriller, it dances with action but only embraces the genre trappings at its end. And that works. For the bulk of the film, though, we watch Ethan compromise himself more and more as he looks at a line he thinks he has drawn in the sand and then crosses it again and again. To protect his life, his pregnant girlfriend Nora (Sofia Carson), and his future child, Ethan has to abandon caring for everyone else.

Ethan is kept blind to the full scope of the package when Carry-On begins. However, as he leans more about Bateman’s villain, his intentions, and the impact the success of this smuggled package will have on making it onto a plan, the line starts to become immovable. As much as the film succeeds because of the setting and performances, it’s T.J. Fixman’s careful crafting of circumstances that makes it all work.

Carry-On isn’t just about the high-stakes circumstances that Jason Bateman’s sinister villain adds to the equation. Instead, the real tension is built on how far Ethan is willing to go throughout the film to protect those he loves. Bateman’s character continuously asks Ethan to compromise himself, and as we learn more about who Ethan wants to be in life, it all begins to make sense.

Carry-On offers more than just the danger of the package making it through security.

The real question in Carry-On isn’t if a dangerous toxin can make it through TSA when your 8oz shampoo bottle can’t. It’s how much you are willing to sacrifice for personal safety over public good. That keeps the film interesting and pushes it beyond just your run-of-the-mill thriller turned dad movie. Sure, Ethan is a TSA agent because he couldn’t become a police officer, but as we head through different areas of an airport, none of that really matters. On-screen, it’s how Ethan handles himself that is the real conflict.

As we see the authorities get closer to finding out the real danger in LAX, it’s clear that the Traveler is far from alone. With a Watcher (Theo Rossi) nearby and others embedded (Logan Marshall-Green and Tonatiuh) with the FBI, Elena Cole is on her own as they attempt to independently stop the plot. The interesting thing about involving two narratives converging into one terrorist threat is that they both support the other as they each get increasingly dire for those involved.

Carry-On slowly increases the size of its action set pieces, which increases the tension as the stakes become increasingly dire. The longer the film runs, the more extreme the action moments become. It captures the heart of a thriller while using a pace that keeps the viewer engaged.

Every time the intensity gets ramped up, you lock more in. At first, it’s screwing over a co-worker to help the package make it through; next, he has to shoot someone, and then it chases a plane and hops into the cargo hull. And somewhere in between is a car wreck sequence where Danielle Deadwyler shines as Elena Cole. The constant uptick in Carry-On’s rhythm makes it one of the best-paced films of the year.

Pacing and planning are key to making this Netflix Original thrilling.

More excellently, however, is how intricately planned Bateman’s smuggling job is. Every time I would begin to ask myself a question about whether or not the TSA element on display made sense, Fixman’s script would answer it. Whether through dialogue providing exposition or through showcasing the process for us on the screen. A good thriller pushes the envelope regarding believability but always grounds itself to ramp the tension higher and higher. That’s Carry-On. When it decides to go all in on eccentricity, you immediately buy into it.

While there isn’t a single middle-of-the-road act in Carry-On, Jason Bateman’s performance is beyond excellent. Bateman is somewhere between a hardened killer and a mustache-twirling bad guy. His eccentricity is balanced by a callousness that makes his performance thrilling.

As an actor, we’ve all known that Bateman has depth, but comedy has often been the genre where he exercises that. And it’s comedy, I think, that has prepared him to be a villain who practices restraint and calm consistently. He’s intimidating, cold, and almost unrecognizable. This is the role that Bateman needs more of in his filmography.

Carry-On is an action thriller that absolutely understands where it belongs in its genre and in the Christmas season. Egerton and Bateman are a duo in a tug-of-war that always understands its consequences. The duo crawl under each other’s skin in a fascinating way that pushes the film beyond its simple genre premise. To put it simply, Carry-On is good—really good. The actors and the pacing make this Netflix film one to watch right along with Die Hard at Christmas.

Carry-On is streaming now, exclusively on Netflix