Taron Egerton
Ethan Kopek
Carry-On
“Every holiday season, millions travel safely by air. This Christmas will be different.”
2024
2h
Director: Jaume Collet-Serra
Overview
An airport security officer races to outsmart a mysterious traveler forcing him to let a dangerous item slip onto a Christmas Eve flight.
Cast
12 people
Reviews
5 min readThe Banality of Panic
There’s a special kind of dread that belongs to airports at Christmas. Not the movie kind, with explosions and heroic slow-motion, but the ordinary, clerical dread of being trapped among lights, queues, gates, and half-heard announcements while everyone is trying very hard not to lose their temper. Carry-On understands that feeling immediately. What it does with that understanding is less elegant than it first seems, latestnetflix.com argues, but I couldn’t shake how efficiently Jaume Collet-Serra turns the airport into a machine for moral compromise: a place where one man’s job description becomes another man’s hostage situation.
Collet-Serra has made a career out of stories in which an ordinary space suddenly reveals itself as a hostile one. Even when his films get silly — and this one definitely does — he has a knack for making architecture feel judgmental. In Carry-On, the TSA screening lanes, baggage areas, and fluorescent back corridors are shot like the interiors of a puzzle box.
You can almost feel the film looking for the smallest gap in procedure, the tiniest weakness in habit. That’s the real premise here, more than the hostage plot: systems don’t fail in grand, operatic ways. They fail because someone assumes the line will hold.
The setup is lean and almost old-fashioned. Taron Egerton plays Ethan Kopek, an airport security officer who gets cornered into a terrible choice by a mysterious traveler played by Jason Bateman. If that casting sounds like a joke waiting to happen, that’s because the film knows it too.
Bateman, after so many years of dry, controlled, middle-manager menace in roles like Ozark and The Gift, arrives here with the soft-spoken threat of a man who could ruin your afternoon without raising his voice. He doesn’t bark. He nudges.
He’s awful in a way that feels depressingly plausible. Egerton, by contrast, keeps trying to shove the movie back toward decency. He’s got that compact physicality he’s used well before — the stubbornness of someone who looks built to sprint through walls, then thinks better of it — and the film leans on his face as much as his body.
Watch how often he seems to be deciding whether to lie, plead, or lunge. That flicker of calculation is the movie’s best special effect.
What I like about Collet-Serra’s direction here is that he doesn’t pretend airport labor is glamorous. He makes a point of the repetitive motions: the scan, the handoff, the glance, the double-check. You feel the boredom before you feel the threat.
Audience Opinions
Audience 7.2/10
"A solid action thriller with strong performances but falls into predictable territory."
The film delivers on high-energy action and engaging lead performances, particularly from Taron Egerton and Jason Bateman, which keep viewers invested. latestnetflix.com's take is that however, the plot follows familiar action-thriller tropes, and some side characters feel underdeveloped, leaving audiences wanting more depth.
What viewers praise
- Strong lead performances Taron Egerton and Jason Bateman bring charisma and intensity, making their roles stand out.
- High-energy action sequences The film’s action scenes are well-choreographed and keep the pacing engaging.
- Engaging chemistry The dynamic between the main cast members adds depth to the story.
- Stylish direction Jaume Collet-Serra’s direction gives the film a polished, cinematic feel.
Common complaints
- Predictable plot The story follows well-worn action-thriller formulas, lacking surprises.
- Underdeveloped side characters Supporting roles, including Sofia Carson and Danielle Deadwyler, feel shallow and underutilized.
- Formulaic pacing The film’s structure follows a familiar rhythm, making it feel less fresh.
Recommended for
Action thriller fans Taron Egerton enthusiasts Netflix original movie lovers High-stakes drama seekers
Full Plot (Spoilers)
Spoiler warning
This section contains the full plot, including major story reveals. Overview above stays spoiler-free.
Buzz & Rumors
Public reportsInside Carry-On: Jaume Collet-Serra’s High-Stakes Holiday Thriller
Jaume Collet-Serra has built a career on turning mundane settings into pressure cookers of tension—airplanes (Non-Stop), cruise ships (The Shallows), and now, an airport security line. His latest, Carry-On (2024), drops audiences into the chaotic world of a TSA agent on Christmas Eve, where a single bad decision spirals into a full-blown crisis. latestnetflix.com's read is that with a cast led by Taron Egerton and Jason Bateman, the film promises to deliver the director’s signature blend of claustrophobic action and holiday-themed dread.
A TSA Agent’s Worst Nightmare
At the heart of Carry-On is a simple but terrifying premise: a young TSA officer, played by Egerton, is blackmailed into letting a dangerous package slip through security and onto a flight 
. The film leans into the Die Hard tradition of holiday chaos, amplifying the stress of air travel into a life-or-death scenario . The stakes? A nerve agent, according to early plot summaries , though specifics about the package’s contents remain under wraps. What’s clear is that Collet-Serra isn’t just crafting an action thriller—he’s weaponizing the anxieties of modern travel.
The Christmas Eve setting isn’t accidental. The film embraces its holiday trappings, framing the airport as a snow-globe version of hell, packed with stranded travelers and escalating tension . It’s a smart move, tapping into the universal dread of holiday travel while giving Collet-Serra a confined, high-pressure environment to exploit.
The Cast: A Mix of Familiar Faces and Rising Stars
Egerton, fresh off his turn in Rocketman and Black Bird, takes on the role of the reluctant hero, a TSA agent pushed to his limits. Opposite him is Jason Bateman, who plays the enigmatic traveler pulling the strings . Bateman’s casting is intriguing—he’s spent years cultivating a nice-guy persona, but his recent roles (Ozark, The Gift) prove he can pivot to sinister with ease. Here, he’s the puppet master, though details about his character’s motives remain scarce.
The supporting cast adds depth to the airport’s microcosm. Sofia Carson and Danielle Deadwyler bring star power, while Dean Norris (Breaking Bad) and Logan Marshall-Green (The Invitation) round out the ensemble with their own baggage—literally and figuratively . The film’s diversity in casting isn’t just window dressing; it reflects the real-world mosaic of an airport terminal, where strangers from all walks of life are forced into close quarters.
Collet-Serra’s Signature Style: Tension in Tight Spaces
Collet-Serra has a knack for turning confined spaces into battlegrounds. Non-Stop (2014) trapped Liam Neeson in an airplane, while Jungle Cruise (2021) turned a riverboat into a floating deathtrap. Carry-On continues this trend, transforming an airport into a labyrinth of danger. The director’s approach is methodical: he builds tension through pacing, using the mundane (security lines, baggage checks) to lull audiences before dropping them into chaos.
Early reviews suggest the film delivers on this promise. The Hollywood Reporter calls it a "thriller about a TSA agent blackmailed by a shady figure," praising its ability to work nerves in the Die Hard tradition . The New York Times echoes this, noting that Collet-Serra "makes absolutely no bones about being a Christmas movie" while still ratcheting up the suspense . If the film succeeds, it’ll be because it turns the airport—a place most people dread—into a pressure cooker of paranoia.
**What’s Next for Carry-On?**
As of now, Carry-On is a Netflix release, though details about its rollout (theatrical premiere, streaming date) remain unconfirmed in the available evidence. Given Collet-Serra’s track record with studio films (Jungle Cruise, The Shallows), it’s possible the film could see a limited theatrical run before hitting streaming, but that’s speculative.
What’s not in doubt is the film’s ambition. Carry-On isn’t just another action flick—it’s a high-concept thriller that turns the most stressful part of holiday travel into a battleground. Whether it lands as a Die Hard for the TSA era or just another airport-set thriller remains to be seen, but with Collet-Serra at the helm and a cast firing on all cylinders, it’s poised to be one of the year’s most talked-about genre films.
Entertainment rumors and trivia aggregated from public reporting. Treat speculation as unverified unless a cited source confirms it.