Carry-On Movie Review: Dangerous Baggage and an Overpacked Runtime
Sneha Jaiswal (Twitter | Instagram)
Ethan Kopek, an unambitious TSA agent, decides to turn his life around after learning his girlfriend is pregnant. However, on his very first day assigned to carry-on baggage scanning, a mysterious traveler blackmails him into allowing a dangerous bag to pass through undetected.
Created by Jaume Collet-Serra (director) and T.J. Fixman (writer), the 2024 thriller Carry-On stars Taron Egerton as protagonist Ethan Kopek, with Jason Bateman portraying an unnamed traveler who forces Ethan into committing a deadly security breach. Theo Rossi plays the traveler’s accomplice, with eyes on Ethan’s girlfriend Nora (Sofia Carson), their leverage against the TSA agent.
Set in Los Angeles Airport on Christmas Eve, Carry-On begins with a prologue scene where the traveler murders a Russian goon and sets fire to a massive greenhouse. Ethan Kopek and girlfriend Nora are then introduced as a young couple excited to have a baby. While Nora works in operations, Ethan is a tardy, low-level security officer with zero promotions in three years, so he practically begs his bosses to give him more responsibility to prove himself. The timing couldn’t be worse. At his new role at the baggage screening desk, someone hands him an earpiece, claiming it’s not theirs. Just as Ethan heads to put the earpiece in the ‘lost and found’ section, he receives ominous texts instructing him to put it on… and thus, the thriller begins.
Almost two hours long, Carry-On has a bloated runtime packed with several conversation-heavy exchanges between Ethan and the mysterious traveler who threatens him. In a thriller like this, you want to see more action and less verbiage. The creators should’ve trimmed some of the interactions between Ethan and the traveler, which come across as merely annoying attempts by a terrorist to familiarize himself with his target.
A minor subplot follows Danielle Deadwyler as police detective Elena Cole, who investigates the murder shown at the beginning of the film. How Elena Cole connects the dots between the murder and a possible security breach at Los Angeles Airport is quite intriguing. The writers manage to maintain tight suspense until the climactic moments of Carry-On regarding the real target and motive of the mysterious traveler.
Taron Egerton is all right as the observant TSA agent Ethan Kopek, who originally wanted to become a cop but couldn’t pass the test. Ethan does all he can to outwit the traveler and prevent him from carrying out his nefarious plan with the suspicious carry-on bag, so the movie largely remains an interesting race against time and resources. However, some ill-timed romantic moments between Ethan and Nora disrupt the film’s tense mood more than once. Sofia Carson was completely miscast in her role, she is wooden and feels more like a wealthy model ready to board her business class flight than a regular airport employee.
Overall, Carry-On is a decent enough one-time watch, with a very ’90s vibe. It’s larger than life, with some scenes and coincidences making little sense, but you’ll want to stick around until the end to see how things conclude.
Rating: 3 on 5. Watch Carry-On on Netflix.
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