Patron Pick – Carry-On

This special reward is available to Patreon patrons who pledge at the $10 or $20 monthly levels. Each month, those patrons will pick a film for me to review. If they choose, they also get to include some of their thoughts about the movie. This Pick comes from Matt Harris.

Carry-On (2024)
Written by T.J. Fixman
Directed by Jaume Collet-Serra

It took just a few minutes of watching Carry-On to realize I was watching a type of copaganda. Instead of shilling for the “boys in blue,” this film attempts to make the TSA (Transportation Security Administration) seem like an essential job that protects Americans and is staffed by cool people who look like action stars. The plot is a yawn-inducing cut & paste of every other terrorist thriller you’ve seen, like tossing 1990s thrillers and the TV series 24 into a blender with some pro-TSA propaganda. I’m not very surprised that a Netflix original is a piece of disposable shlock; that’s sort of the brand at this point.

Ethan Kopek (Taron Edgerton) is a Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) TSA officer. We learn he’s upset about a previous rejection from the police academy for hiding his dad’s criminal history. He goes to work on Christmas Eve. While Ethan is on his shift, he is given an earbud. He pops it in his ear, and a man known as the Traveler explains his wife will be killed if he doesn’t let a specific carry-on pass inspection. Thus begins Ethan running around the airport trying to ensure his wife survives, but intent on stopping whatever it is these terrorists are trying to get on the plane. This isn’t a long movie, but I felt my attention drifting from about twenty minutes in and constantly having to refocus.

Carry-On is a continuation of all the brain-dead problems going on in American mainstream cinema at the moment. The TSA is presented completely fantastically, ignoring the low pay, high turnover, poor treatment by management, and lack of union protections for people who work for the organization. Most TSA agents struggle to find a career in other industries because the education they came up with inadequately prepared them. They settle for this airport security guard job. The low pay leads to the common occurrence of theft from passengers’ luggage. Some TSA officers steal tech and sell it on the side to try and make up for those low wages. It would be better if the whole job was dissolved; it is just security theater, and people were given some type of work that benefited their communities.

But this is typical Hollywood. They refuse to present the lives of the working class as anything other than a parallel reality completely disconnected from the day-to-day struggle. You might think a more realistic movie would be boring, but I would point you to the incredible French drama Full-Time, about a woman working as a hotel maid in Paris. It is shot like a Jason Bourne movie, and it works completely. You are invested and just as excited as if you were watching Mission: Impossible. Carry-On chooses to be the most bland, formulaic garbage that is predictable from start to finish. There’s nothing inherently wrong with cheap trash movies, per se; it’s just that they have completely saturated the US film market to the point I have actually seen people saying this is a “good movie.”

Taron Edgerton is fine as Ethan. All his struggles are personal, which lets the movie ignore systemic problems like the pointless existence of the TSA in the first place. His big upset over being kicked out of the police academy told me this was “back the blue” garbage. Ethan’s entire life is framed dishonestly, without finances ever being touched. Like cop movies, the film presents the enemy as all around us, i.e., civilians. Every person who comes through the line is either an unrealistic asshole or a scary terrorist. 

I do like seeing Jason Bateman cast as a villain. Carry-On doesn’t give him much to work with, but I think most of it. His fast-talking style helps make The Traveler feel like someone who is always a few steps ahead. There’s just something about Bateman’s look when he’s staring someone down that is genuinely intimidating. I know actors like to try new roles and stretch themselves, so I hope some casting director sees this and gives Bateman a juicier role. That could be one positive that comes out of the existence of this dreck.

Director Jaume Collet-Serra is a journeyman director. He’s responsible for pictures like The Shallows, Black Adam, Disney’s Jungle Cruise, and many Liam Neeson action flicks. It’s those movies Carry-On reminds me of the most, and I have never enjoyed Neeson’s action movie work. He does kick ass in Darkman, though. When you look over Collet-Serra’s filmography, it makes sense that he would be behind Carry-On. His movies are that sort of flavorless, forgettable fare.

I was also annoyed with how the film plays into this nonsensical “lone good guy” trope. I’m so sick of seeing this individualist crap. And don’t say it’s just escapism. US movies are nothing but that at this point. Maybe it would be nice to see a movie that shows a lone hero failing and needing a group of people to help him. This mindset is always forbidden by employers because they know in real life, you’ll get your ass killed or hurt someone, and the business gets sued. That’s why they teach store clerks not to run after shoplifters. 

The airport is not a battlefield in the war on terror. It’s a site of exploitation both for the workers and the passengers coming through. And it’s an inefficient system. Carry-On does everything it can to justify the heavy-handed security measures and constant surveillance that suck up far too much of the nation’s revenue for little benefit. Maybe stop sending and funding armies around the world that foment the sort of terrorism the TSA was created for? To watch this movie, you wouldn’t even know that the TSA regularly racially profiles passengers. No, it wants us to believe TSA workers are potential action movie stars.

I would not recommend this movie if you couldn’t guess. It is too boring as a thriller to keep my attention, and it presents the TSA completely dishonestly. A more grounded portrayal of working in an airport would have been far more interesting. There’s space for a movie like that. Jason Bateman as a villain is a good idea, but not explored in any interesting way here. Typical Netflix bullshit.