Netflix film “Carry-On”, which was released in last week, is a familiar but efficient genre variation to enjoy. Yes, this is surely influenced by many other thriller films ranging from “Die Hard 2” (1990) to “Nick of Time” (1995), but the story and characters are skillfully handled with enough thrill and suspense, and you will gladly go along with that even while occasionally noticing its plot holes and contrivances during your viewing.

After the opening scene which effectively sets the tone, we are introduced to a lad named Ethan Kopek (Taron Egerton), who has worked as a Transportation Security Administration (TSA) officer at LA International Airport. Because it is Christmas Eve, Kopek and his girlfriend, who also works at the airport, will soon go through one of the busiest days at their big workplace, and the movie succinctly establishes their close relationship as they are going together to the airport early in the morning.

Because his girlfriend recently turned out to be pregnant, Kopek comes to feel the need to be more responsible about where his life and career are going, so he decides to be more active about getting promoted. After managing to persuade his direct supervisor, he comes to replace a colleague who is incidentally also his best friend, and we see him scanning the luggage of the incoming passengers instead of that colleague.

However, there soon comes a big problem not long after Kopek begins scanning those incoming suitcases one by one. It turns out that there is someone very dangerous inside the airport, and this guy, who approaches Kopek via a remote earphone sent to him, demands Kopek to do one supposedly insignificant thing. All Kopek will have to do is ignoring the scanning result on the baggage of a certain passenger, and this guy threatens to kill Kopek’s girlfriend if Kopek refuses to follow his instruction.

Naturally, Kopek becomes quite nervous to say the least. He attempts to find any possible way to alert this serious threat to anyone around him, but, not so surprisingly, his opponent keeps cornering him in one way or another, and he chillingly demonstrates at one point that he is definitely not someone Kopek can easily mess with at any chance.

Steadily rolling the story and characters with more tension, the screenplay by T.J. Fixman also brings some more character details to the plot. As Kopek and his opponent push or pull each other throughout the story, we get to know more about why Kopek has been reluctant to do more for his life and career, and it is rather ironic to see how he becomes all the more active than before as trying to save himself as well as many others including her girlfriend. Although he is still one or two steps behind his opponent, he comes to show much more grit and cleverness than he has ever possibly imagined, and we surely come to root for him more as constantly reminded of what is being at stake for him and others.

Under the competent direction of director Jaume Collet-Serra, who made a number of enjoyable genre flicks such as “Orphan” (2009), “Run All Night” (2015), and “The Shallows” (2016), the movie provides a series of solid suspenseful moments to keep us on the edge to the end. There is an unnerving scene where our hero finally encounters what he is supposed to ignore, and that is just the beginning of how things become a bit more complicated for him and several other characters including his opponent. At one point, he must stay calm and careful in handling the content of that certain baggage in question, and you may also be a bit amused by the presence of a time-honored genre cliché which was incidentally disliked a lot by my late mentor/friend Roger Ebert. 

The movie certainly depends much on the talent and presence of its lead performer for vividly conveying us to the amounting tension and pressure on its hero, and Taron Egerton, a promising British actor who has been moving onto better things since “Kingsman: The Secret Service” (2014), dutifully holds the film together as required. Even when his character does not seem to signify much on the surface, Egerton ably illustrates his character’s growing panic and desperation along the story, and his strong performance keeps driving the film even when it stumbles a bit more than once later in the story.

The movie also assembles a bunch of good supporting performers around Egerton. Despite her rather thankless role, Sofia Carson brings some warmth to her scene with Egerton early in the film, and Tonatiuh, Theo Rossi, Logan Marshall-Green, Sinqua Walls, Curtiss Cook, Joe Williamson, and Dean Norris are also well-cast in their respective parts. Although her supporting character is more or less than a plot device, Danielle Deadwyler provides a bit of extra intensity to the story, and Jason Bateman is alternatively smarmy and menacing in his villainous role.

 Overall, “Carry-On” works fairly well while doing exactly what it is expected to, and the result is one of more enjoyable offerings from Netflix during this year. It is surely a by-the-book thriller flick from the beginning to the end, but it is certainly better than Collet-Serra’s recent films “Jungle Cruise” (2021) and “Black Adam” (2022), and that is enough for recommendation in my trivial opinion.