Taron Egerton is a TSA officer who's aiming to further advance himself on account of his pregnant girlfriend (Sofia Carson) in the new Netflix action thriller "Carry-On". He gets his chance to prove himself worthy of a raise by tackling more responsibilities. His day takes a dark turn when he receives cryptic texts from an unknown number surveying his every move. This stranger (Jason Bateman) in question instructs our officer to comply with his request to get a suitcase past inspection, or his girlfriend will be assassinated.
Our lead is stuck between a rock and a hard place. How can he request help when this stranger is tracking his every move via the security monitors and this earpiece he was given? So far, the premise is basically "Phone Booth", but set in a TSA inspection area within an airport. It starts out fine and promising enough, with Bateman throwing in some savage quips to convince our lead to obey his demands. You have some decent character building with our lead's request for a raise quickly shot down by his boss (Dean Norris).
There's background established on his failure to get into the police academy as he'd originally planned. Egerton gets in his own subtle rebuttals to Bateman's well timed advice. If "Carry-On" had been like the first half all the way through, it likely would've been one of Netflix's better offerings this year. I must confess however that the longer I sat on it, the more I picked up on the pitfalls and plotholes that are holding this film back. Forget the fact that a TSA officer is most likely going to be too busy to look at their phones while on duty.
Yes, that fact would further discredit this situation from happening in real-life, due to various policies that airport staff of all kinds have to abide by. But the bigger plot errors are made further into the narrative's second half. After setting up how hyper aware our antagonist is about the operations of TSA and catching our protagonist in the act of trying to contact help, you'd think that level of awareness would be consistent. Wrong. As soon as Bateman talks to Egerton face to face, his credibility and intimidation went all downhill from there.
Because all I'm thinking to myself now is that: why would you continue pressing this one guy to do your dirty work when you've proven that you can just get someone else to do it for you anyway? Sure, the officer failing to call bluff on his threat is a plothole. But it's as if they keep digging said plothole deeper. And the further along I got into "Carry-On", the more predictable and underwhelming the experience became. There's an idea for an interesting thriller trying to come out, but it's undone and disserviced by contrived movie logic.
For example, why do central movie villains insist on taking their time in disposing of our protagonist when they can just hurry up and fulfill their evil goals? They could achieve what they set out to do instead of our protagonist outsmarting them with their own stupidity. Why does the film industry insist on making its villains forget their brains to conveniently fulfill a formula at the expense of credibility? This isn’t the first time something like this has happened either. Every time screenwriters pull stunts like this, it ruins the experience for me.
You had a good thing going for you in the first half, and then you dropped the ball. There's also a subplot consisting of this detective (Danielle Deadwyler) and her assistant that really lost me. This subplot feels like just another obligation to a firm formula. Insert a strong black women for relevance and fulfill a diversity requirement. Check. And that element isn't even strong enough to justify being shoehorned into this narrative. Some of the action and violence as well was also unfulfilling.
It never grabbed me, nor did it do anything to separate itself from peers such as "Die Hard". I'm pretty sure CG was involved as well. Suffice it to say, I got increasingly frustrated with "Carry-On" the longer it, well, carried on. The actors work well with the material they've been given. Some if it works fine, but its most important elements fell flat. You've made strides with your study of the TSA. But alas, you still can't outsmart the TSA with the current plan that you have hatched here. Nice try.
Final Verdict: 6/10
Comments