MIDNIGHT REVIEWS Carry-On
“Ooh Taron, you’ve gone and run me up the wrong terminal!”
Matthew D. Smith also has a podcast he co-hosts with Leslie Wai. You can find it here.
Carry-On (1hr 59mins)
Directed by: Jaume Collet-Serra
Featuring: Taron Egerton, Jason Bateman, Sofia Carson
Synopsis: Ethan (Egerton) is a TSA officer working at LAX. The day he decides to step up and try to prove he’s worthy of a promotion also happens to be the day a certain Traveler (Bateman) tries to smuggle through something incredibly dangerous, blackmailing Ethan to look the other way. Talk about a stressful Christmas!
Review: Carry-On is, for better or worse, a purveyor of classic action movie tropes. Die Hard in an airport (or, as a friend pointed out, Die Hard 2) then. Whether you enjoy it or not is down to how much you can ignore exposition, flights of fancy and plot holes big enough to fly a plane through.
First, the front-loaded exposition. The Traveler (a highly effective Jason Bateman, proving that calling someone ‘buddy’ in a passive-aggressive voice is his thing) murders two gangsters for some reason before trying to smuggle a dodgy suitcase through LAX. His plan was to blackmail the TSA officer at the X-ray machine by having someone else kidnap their family. Problem is, Ethan Kopek decides today is the day to start proving himself and ends up on the X-ray machine instead. An earbud finds its way to him in strange circumstances, and in listening to the weary Traveller at the other end, Ethan finds himself under the cosh instead. Such is life/80s-style action thrillers.
Incredibly entertaining even if its premise is far from original.
Once all the set up is out of the way, Carry-On proves itself incredibly entertaining even if its premise is far from original. It also gives another reason for people to stop checking their phones every two minutes. Why did he put the earbud in? Why did he listen to the Traveller in the first place? Why?
This is where Carry-On proves itself, allowing the viewer to sit at a distance, hoping and then lamenting whenever something goes wrong. It also proves itself quite tense, with cutaways to a police investigation acting as relief before diving back in to feeling Ethan’s every squeeze and bead of sweat as he tries to get out of a jam.
Interestingly, the film allows itself to carry a few vague political messages along with the running and the shooting. A constant running theme of money being a problem crops up (Ethan worries about his unborn child not being provided for; another TSA worker is constantly trying to tout his own side hustle); Ethan is reminded that so many of the situations he finds himself in have been orchestrated by ‘those in control’; the world is presented as one that is very much dog-eat-dog.
This is not a movie that necessarily minds its manners. This world invariably puts people in the shit before stepping back and shrugging its shoulders. It’d be nihilistic if it weren’t for the lush, golden promises that 80s movies provided — that in the end, everything will work out if we work hard, and trust those around us to help us. These are two diametrically opposing tones, but that seems to be the movie’s point.
Tense enough but not so believable.
When it comes to the more practical, surface-level ideas the film has, Carry-On works hard enough to be a cut above the B-movies, without ever fully exerting itself to A status. It’s the first movie in a while where mobile phones are so integral, and unlike most the film’s presentation of these devices works well. There’s a Ho Ho ad that made me feel like I was on another streaming platform that features adverts. We’re encouraged to feel relief when the protagonist releases poisonous gas on a crowded plane. It’s nice that heads of department for the film get their own equipment shown off in the slick end credits sequence.
Carry-On is tense enough but not so believable it’d make you second-guess going on a plane.
Matthew D. Smith likes to overshare his views on movies and TV shows whenever and wherever he can. Indulge him, and follow him on Twitter or enjoy the podcast he co-hosts with Leslie Wai.
