While the title will immediately provoke visions of Kenneth Williams’ nostrils flaring in indignation at Sid James legendarily filthy cackle to a certain section of the population, Netflix’s latest attempt to stream an action thriller that doesn’t utterly suck takes the surprisingly tight form of Carry-On, a taunt knuckle-whitener that’s seemingly trying to merge the more stressful parts of Die Hard II and Phone Booth.
Previous attempts by the streaming giant to try and convince us that their latest, glossy, vanity project isn’t actually an empty exercise devoid of originality have mostly fallen flat, however, Carry-On immediately feels different mainly because it’s the actual plot that takes the lead and not a glassy-eyed actor who simply fancied playing a spy, or something. So sit back and enjoy a good old christmas-set thriller that trades in holly and Christmas lights for ticking countdowns, prolonged sprinting and a battle of wits that certainly result in quite a carry on!
Ethan Kopek works as a TSA officer at LAX Airport and as the sun rises on Christmas Eve, we find that despite having a loving girlfriend, Nora, and a brand new baby on the way, he’s grown fairly despondent with his life as it seems to plateaued after he failed to get admitted to the police academy. However, in an attempt to show Nora that he still has a sliver of ambition, he approaches his boss for a promotion and after an impassioned plea, his friend Jason volunteers to give up his spot at the baggage scanning lane so to give his buddy the professional push he needs.
This turns out to be something of an incredibly bad move, because unbeknownst to them there’s dark forces at work that will put whomever is at that baggage scanner in something of a monumental pickle. You see, a mysterious man known in the credits as The Traveller has planned out an insidious plot in order to sneak a particular item of carry-on luggage through customs and that means that Ethan’s in for a magnificently shitty Christmas Eve. Getting his orders from the Traveller over an earpiece that gets smuggled to him, he has to jump through a series of hoops to allow the titular luggage safe passage while making sure his behavior doesn’t arouse suspicion among his peers.
However, this would be tough on a day that wasn’t Christmas Eve in one of the world’s busiest airports and Ethan not only has to constantly think on his feet to keep his girlfriend from catching a sniper’s bullet, but he’s also trying to find a way to outwit the voice in his ear and slow down whatever the Traveller’s got planned.
As this game of three dimentional chess unravels, new wrinkles to the Traveller’s plan slowly come to light as LAPD Detective Elena Cole is on his trail after getting wind of some Novichok nerve gas loose in the area. Can Ethan continue to be a fly in the Traveller’s ointment long enough for Cole to figure out what’s happening?
Aside from the occasional attempt from Shane Black to add more explosions, gunfire and snappy banter to the seasonal period, it feels like Christmas action movies aren’t quite what they once were with most of them being a bit overly gimmicky and cartoonish. However, with Carry-On, it seems that director Jaume Collet-Serra is making an extra concerted effort to bring back the more stressful Xmas action movies we used to get during the 90s. Obviously, with its airport setting, memories of John McClane shooting his way through the runways of Washington DC in Die Hard II are thick in the air as our blue collar hero struggles to do the right thing against an opponent with way more prep time. However, while Carry-On opts to not go the route of having its lead eject out of an exploding plane, the movie’s stripped back thriller aspect also bring to mind more subtle, single locale movies that strives to lace your brow with sweat thanks to an influx of mind games. Thus Joel Schumacher’s Phone Booth springs to mind as Ethan has to take orders from the voice of a famous actor who is gleefully embracing his inner domestic terrorist while trying to figure out how to escape, despite essentially being a bug under glass.
Collet-Serra is something at an old hand at this thanks to stranding Blake Lively on a rock while she’s constantly being hassled by a hungry shark in The Shallows, but while it seemed like we had resigned his career to helping post-Taken Liam Neeson flicks (he made four of them) and Dwayne Johnson vanity projects (two of those) finding him going back to a more simpler mode sees the filmmaker in rude health. The secret is that he doesn’t push the concept too far into the realms of the ridiculous. Ethan is smart, but doesn’t suddenly transform into an invulnerable McClane clone to survive endless fistfight and nearby explosions. In fact, aside from the odd bit of Tom Cruise-style sprinting, Ethan remains refreshingly human and the best aspects of Carry-On seems to be that it never loses sight of who its characters are supposed to be.
Take Taron Egerton’s hero for example. Yes the film totally utilises the likability factor of the actor who helped make Elton John relatable, but it also realises that Ethan is far more interesting the more crap you dump on him and the movie and the actor isn’t afraid to have the character have to pull some dark shit in order to try and saved lives. Acting opposite him and have a great deal of fun bringing as much downplayed menace as he can to his talky role is Jason Bateman who uses his somewhat counterintuitive casting to his advantage. Simply put, his gloriously machiavellian Traveller is a ball to hate and Bateman’s smuggled delivery is such that you actually can’t wait for Ethan to eventually get the upper hand – thankfully the movie makes you wait as their mental game of chess takes some impressively unpredictable turns.
However, the movie is savvy enough to realise that it needs to spend some time away from the airport to build a sense of the true endgame, and the the subplot involving Danielle Deadwyler’s Detective trying to figure out things from the other end not only synchs up well, but it delivers an absolutely cracking action sequences involving a fight in a speeding car that’s done all in “one shot” and is set to the sounds of Last Christmas by George Michael.
However, while it’s fair to say that for all it’s attempts to be a crazily likable, Christmas set action thriller that deals in tension and bombs, Carry,On has a long way to go to even be in the same sentence as the exalted king of all Christmas time action films, Die Hard, it actually stacks up rather well when compared to some of the also-rans. Whether it becomes a regular staple of annual, December-set, Xmas movies marathons will remain to be seen, but it’s a damn sight better than the overblown ego of Red One that was released earlier this year and as tight thrillers with tangible stakes go, Netflix has actually placed quite a nifty little gift under the tree this year…
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