The tightly spun and thoroughly entertaining Netflix holiday thriller “Carry-On” had a reported budget of about $47 million, which is about a quarter of what it cost to make the bloated and star-studded and instantly forgettable likes of the Netflix mega-movies “Red Notice” and “The Gray Man,” and maybe there’s a lesson here and maybe not. I’ll take four movies like “Carry-On” over another “Red Notice” any day. Give me a taut, crisply written, well-acted, character-driven suspense story over yet another impressively mounted but empty-calorie international thriller with superstars mugging and quipping their way through a low-stakes story filled with CGI and swooshing drone shots.
Not that I’m saying “Carry-On” will dazzle you with its creativity. It’s more like a blend of similar movies in the genre: With the action taking place on Christmas Eve and the airport as the primary setting for a game of cat and mouse between a guy with a badge but limited authority who winds up in the wrong place at the wrong time, and a terrorist threatening to kill hundreds if his demands aren’t met, it’s reminiscent of “Die Hard 2” from 1990. The story is laced with tense and ongoing conversations between the earpiece-wearing TSA Officer Ethan Kopek (Taron Egerton) and a twisted mastermind (played by Jason Bateman) on the other end of the line who plays mind games with Ethan, ridicules him for lacking the courage to try to make something of himself, and thr.
