Carry-On

Synopsis: Security agent at LAX races to foil a terrorist on Christmas Eve.

Carry-On is a Christmas movie like Die Hard is a Christmas movie. Neither film has to do with the fun or worship of the Christmas season, but they both take place at Christmas-time. The would-be heroes in each movie are up against terrorists, with hundreds of lives at risk. No tidings of comfort and joy until the bad guys are vanquished.

Taron Egerton (Rocketman) is Ethan Kopek, a Transportation Security Agency (TSA) agent at Los Angeles International airport. Ethan has been on the job for about three years, without any enthusiasm.  He wants to be a cop but was rejected from the academy for reasons that are unclear. 

Just before his Christmas Eve shift, he has an epiphany; he will work diligently for a promotion. His new ambition is fueled by the news that his girlfriend is pregnant. The pregnancy was planned and, strictly speaking, he doesn’t need a quick pay raise because his partner Nora (Sofia Carson) is an ‘airport operations’ exec at LAX.  She has a high maintenance eyebrow game and says supportive things like: Babe, give the academy another shot. Then Ethan will say: Sometimes dreams have an expiration date.

Still, Ethan is not a sad sack. He is well-liked at work by his fellow TSA agents. Not so much by his supervisor, Officer Sarkowski (Dean Norris), who recognizes that, although Ethan has integrity and intelligence, he’s just coasting. 

Ethan and Nora take the LAX bus system to their work terminal. I wondered if their commute took as long as it takes passengers to ride to the no man’s land ride share lots. 

If Ethan wants to fast track a promotion, he’s not off to a great start. He’s late to the morning meeting, so he runs like a track star –which he was in high school, thank you very much– taking shortcuts through the labyrinth terminal. His boss makes a sarcastic remark to Ethan when he bolts in, breathless. He takes the chastisement in stride, as his fellow officers give him sympathetic grins.

A word here about the TSA… not to be a downer and bring up 9-11, but the terrorist attacks in the U.S., led to what seemed to be an overnight mushrooming of a new agency. Right away there were new officers. You might wonder: With such a rush to staff airports, how thorough was the search for qualified employees?

Uhh, it seems there have been more than enough incidents to prompt  passengers to ask the same question. At the same time, TSA agents have been harangued for just trying to do their jobs. Carry-On has an amusing edit of passengers getting huffy with agents over being ‘wanded.’ Is this because I’m brown/Black/white?

When Ethan (hu)mans his post for the day, screening passengers’ carry-ons, a few passengers ruthlessly ridicule him for being stupid, lowly, etc… Ethan keeps his head held high and behaves professionally.

Okay, so Carry-On is not about the TSA’s thankless toiling on behalf of public safety, or even Ethan’s newfound ambition in light of new family responsibilities. It is about vicious, sadistic terrorists and the one person who stands between them and the thousands of people moving through the airport. On that most holy of travel days: Christmas Eve! 

Alan Rickman as bad guy Hans Gruber in Die Hard is a tough act to follow. Carry-On‘s villain is established early on as a merciless evil-doer when we see him committing preliminary crimes at a greenhouse. Yes, plants are harmed. The next time we see him, or the back of him, is when he’s lurking through LAX.

But Ethan doesn’t see him. While he’s screening bag after bag, an earbud is turned in to him. Immediately, he gets a call on his cell telling him to put-in the earbud. The authoritative voice instructs him to let a carry-on through. He tells Ethan the flight the passenger carrying it will be on. He helpfully tells Ethan that the person will be wearing a red hat. Hopefully there will not be a contingent of Santas on said flight. Hmm, the voice sounds familiar…

It’s Jason Bateman. I still picture him as the hapless and mild-mannered Michael Bluth from Arrested Development, so I wasn’t too scared. If it were Michael Fassbender, then I’d be worried for everyone at LAX. Turns out the terrorist — or as he calls himself, a “freelance facilitator”- is like the most ruthless corporate exec ever, with a real kink for tormenting the people he blackmails into being accessories to his crimes. 

When Ethan gets the orders from his earbud, he refuses to comply, scanning the terminal for where/who might be talking to him. He tells Ethan that he has an associate training a gun on his girlfriend Nora, so he should reconsider his answer.

What follows is a cat and mouse game where Ethan tries to find a way to alert the police without his girlfriend getting killed. First, he tries to identify the villain by picking up on background noises in the messages. It’s maddening that psycho Jason Bateman is perfectly relaxed at the airport whenever we catch a glimpse of him. Since he doesn’t have a flight to catch, he situates himself at a bar, having a drink and nibbling on mixed nuts.

Ethan keeps a cool head, but he’s frantic to stop the terrorist. Tell me there’s nothing dangerous in that bag, he implores. No, says the terrorist with satisfaction.

What follows is a dangerous sprint through LAX, with Ethan trying to slip away from the terrorist’s surveillance. When Ethan gets foiled, Jason Bateman scolds him, threatens his girlfriend and belittles him. He doubles down on telling him that he’ll always be a loser, no better than his security guard father. Ouch.

Meanwhile there’s an LA cop who is investigating the crimes committed at the greenhouse in the beginning of the story. Because she is a damned good cop, she’s seeing a larger picture that points to terrorism. Her boss just rolls his eyes when she points to red flags and tells her to go home. Like hell she will!

Let me tell you, besides being smart she can also throw a prize-winning punch. You’ll be rooting for her to get to LAX to help Ethan because he has to go through all manner of danger, including fighting it out on a rollercoasting system of baggage conveyor belts.

Okay, Carry On is a work of fiction, but I learned some stuff anyway. One of the managers sternly informs his staff that 200,000 people will be passing through the airport on Christmas Eve. Which is why, later, another manager screams to someone on the phone : You want me to shut down the airport on the busiest day of the year?!! The guy was definitely leaning into the Jaws Amity governance guidebook when the mayor, in horrified disbelief, asked Sheriff Brody if he was really suggesting that he close down the beaches on July 4th, the busiest day of the year!

 Lesson learned: don’t travel on Christmas Eve, if you can help it. Lesson learned for Ethan? Maybe reapply to the police academy.

Movie Loon Movie Review Shortcut:

Grade:   B+

Cut to the Chase:  Well-paced thriller with a likable lead.

Humor Highlight:  A character zipping across a tarmac at high speeds on a baggage vehicle.