Review by
Eric Hillis
Directed by: Jaume Collet-Serra
Starring: Taron Egerton, Jason Bateman, Danielle Deadwyler,
Sofia Carson, Dean Norris, Logan Marshall-Green
"Is Die Hard a Christmas movie?" is a tiresome question that gets rolled out by
the clickbait industry every December. You'll have your own answer, but
director Jaume Collet-Serra and writer TJ Fixman certainly seem to view that action classic as very much a Christmas
movie. Their Die Hard clone (or Die Hard 2 clone, given its airport setting) Carry-On (a title likely to confuse older Brits) leans heavily into the
festiveness of Die Hard by setting its action on Christmas Eve, and in the last place on
earth you want to find yourself on December 24th - a major airport.
For LAX TSA agent Ethan (Taron Egerton), Christmas ain't the most
wonderful time of the year. His day begins with an early morning lecture
from his pregnant girlfriend Nora (Sofia Carson) on how he's
wasting his life and should reapply for the police academy, having been
previously rejected. Ethan's day gets considerably worse when he's
assigned to a baggage-scanning post, where he becomes the key pawn in what
seems like a major terrorism plot.
Forced to wear an earbud, Ethan receives communications from a sinister
figure (Jason Bateman, credited as "The Traveler") who demands that
he allow a specific bag to pass through security and onto a plane carrying
250 passengers. Ethan is informed that if he fails to comply, Nora, who
also works at the airport, will be taken out by a sniper.
As with most Die-Hard-on-a_ movies, Carry-On presents us with a beleaguered and somewhat emasculated working
class male protagonist who gets the opportunity to prove his worth by
foiling the nefarious plot of sophisticated villains. The movie breaks
convention by removing the "special set of skills" such protagonists are
usually revealed to possess. The usual scene where the villains run a
background check and exclaim "Oh shit, he's a Green Beret/Navy SEAL/Beekeeper" is replaced here with a reveal that Ethan's life is a litany of
successive failures. This makes Ethan a more relatable hero than we're
accustomed to in movies of this nature. He's not much good in a hand to
hand fight and is highly uncomfortable with a gun in his hand, so much of
the fun comes from seeing him use his quick wits to try to alleviate the
situation.
Forcing Ethan to deal not only with a potential terrorist but also a
pissed off girlfriend adds an extra element of stress to this
sweat-inducing scenario, and a large contingent of the male audience will
likely find Nora more terrifying than The Traveler. While Ethan tries to
thwart things at LAX, elsewhere an LAPD homicide detective (Danielle Deadwyler) pieces together clues. While the airport thrills are largely of a
psychological nature, this subplot gives us the action highlight - a brawl
inside an out of control car on a busy freeway, filmed in dazzling fashion
with the camera remaining inside the spinning vehicle.
As The Traveler, Bateman creates an intimidating villain without having
to adjust his trademark ironic detachment. His matter-of-factness gives us
the impression that while this Christmas Eve is the worst day of Ethan's
life, for The Traveler, it's just another Tuesday.
Carry-On ticks all the boxes of a Die Hard clone, but there's one key element that's disappointingly missing -
the asshole. It's severely lacking the sort of smarmy prick that makes us
cheer when the hero slugs them in the final scene. Given the movie is set
in an airport - where despite what Love, Actually might argue, you usually find humanity at its worst - it feels like
a missed opportunity in a movie that otherwise fulfils its action thriller
obligations in some style.
Carry-On is on Netflix from
December 13th.
