Carry-On – Review

20th December 2024

Carry-On – Review. By Daniel Rester.

There’s nothing worse than working during the holidays. Except maybe working during the holidays as a TSA agent. Such is the luck for Ethan Kopek (Taron Egerton) in Carry-On. He has to deal with the impatient travelers making their way through the security lines at LAX. His day gets even worse once he is blackmailed into helping a terrorist.

Ethan gets a chance to prove himself for a possible promotion by helping scan luggage. But he chose the wrong day – Christmas Eve – and the wrong lane. Soon after arriving to work with his pregnant girlfriend Nora (Sofia Carson), Ethan is given an earpiece and is presented with orders from a mysterious voice (Jason Bateman). The man tells him that he must let a certain man and his luggage through security without trouble or else Nora will be killed.

Carry-On is a simple but effective mid-budget thriller from director Jaume Collet-Serra. He specialized in making such films for years (Unknown (2013), Run All Night (2015), The Shallows (2016)) before graduating to making big-budget projects starring Dwayne Johnson (Jungle Cruise (2021), Black Adam (2022)). In a way it’s refreshing to see Collet-Serra return to his wheelhouse instead of being lost to the studio tent poles forever.

For its first 70 or so minutes, Carry-On has a lot of suspenseful back-and-forth dialogue exchanges between Ethan and the terrorist. The antagonist has his henchmen dig up info on Ethan, so there is actually quite a bit of character backstory seamlessly woven into the scenes. Ethan also tries to find ways to signal police and his-coworkers, but the terrorist is always watching him with the security camera feeds.

Both Egerton and Bateman play their characters quite well. Egerton brings a likable everyman quality to Ethan while Bateman is deliciously menacing as the bad guy. Bateman is better known for his comedic work, but he’s actually an excellent dramatic actor too. If you like his performance here, I recommend seeing him in the TV show Ozark (2017-2022) and the film The Gift (2015).

The supporting cast members surrounding Egerton and Bateman are solid. The talents include Dean Norris, Logan Marshall-Green, Theo Rossi, and Danielle Deadwyler. They are all stuck with stock characters, but they give them some believability. Deadwyler as a dedicated and tough detective is good casting.

Collet-Serra directs Carry-On competently and slickly as he brings T.J. Fixman’s functional screenplay to life. There are a few chases and fist fights thrown into the mix, and there’s even a quick and wild scene inside of a vehicle that involves clever visuals. Whether it’s the action scenes or the Egerton-Bateman conversations, Collet-Serra keeps things moving smoothly – and is aided by Lorne Balfe’s propulsive music score.

Carry-On is too long at 119 minutes. The second half of the film starts feeling repetitive and the scenarios become less and less believable as Ethan goes from everyday guy to hero. A tighter 100-minute film with less implausible action would have made for a better picture overall, but unfortunately Fixman and Collet-Serra drag things out with ridiculous plot turns.

Carry-On is never amazing, but it’s an easy watch that contains plenty of thrills and two very reliable performers at its center. And it teaches people to be nicer to TSA agents this holiday season. Because they don’t just battle grumpy travelers, but manipulative terrorists too.

Rating: 6.5/10

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