My heart is literally trying to beat its way out of my chest.
Just finished Carry-On on Netflix and I think I need to go walk around the block. Twice. I've been curled in a tense ball on my couch for the last two hours and my cat, Mochi, keeps giving me weird looks like I've personally offended her by existing in this state of high alert. My knuckles are white from gripping the remote. I actually had to pause it during the scene where he's scanning the bag. Just hit that little pause icon on Netflix and stared at my ceiling, breathing like I'd just run a marathon.
The whole movie is just... anxiety. Pure, uncut, injected directly into your veins anxiety. And I couldn't look away.
Jason Bateman. Holy shit. He's not playing Michael Bluth anymore. He's playing the devil in a slightly-too-casual winter coat. There's this one moment, this tiny little thing that's burned into my brain. He's talking to Taron Egerton's character, Ethan, and he says something like, "It's just a bag, Ethan. And it's just a job." The way he says it. So calm. So reasonable. Like he's asking for the time, not threatening to blow up a plane and kill the woman Ethan loves. It's the casualness of it all. That's what got me. It's stuck in my head, looping over and over. The absolute mundane evil of it.
It reminded me of this one time I was flying back from college and lost my wallet. I was at the security checkpoint, panicking, holding up the line, and the TSA agent was just looking at me with this dead-eyed expression. "Sir, you need to remove your belt." And I'm like, "I CAN'T, I'VE LOST MY ENTIRE LIFE." And he just repeats, "Sir. The belt." I felt so powerless. So small. That feeling of being trapped in the machinery of the airport, with all these rules you can't break. Ethan felt that, but like, times a million. At least my guy wasn't threatening to...
But honestly? Now that I'm typing this out... was the villain's whole plan a little... dumb? I mean, the logistics of it all. Relying on one specific TSA agent having a very specific vulnerability and being on duty on a very specific day? It feels a little... convoluted. I thought it was brilliant while I was watching it, totally swept up in the moment. But now? I don't know. Maybe I'm just overthinking it because my adrenaline is crashing. It felt so real and immediate on my TV screen, but maybe it's full of holes. Whatever. It worked in the moment.
Watching this at home was a weird choice. I like the comfort of my couch, don't get me wrong. But this movie demands your full attention. I kept checking my phone out of habit, and then I'd look up and miss a crucial piece of dialogue and have to rewind ten seconds. My Wi-Fi even buffered for a split second right before a major reveal and I almost threw my laptop across the room. The sound of that loading wheel... pure torture. At least in a theater, you're trapped. You can't pause. You're forced to submit. Here, I had the power, and I almost abused it. I did get up to make popcorn, which was a mistake. Butterfingers. Came back to find I'd missed like two whole minutes and had no idea what was going on.
Taron Egerton was good, though. Really good. You can see the sweat on his forehead. You can see the gears turning in his head, trying to figure a way out. He's not a super spy. He's just a guy. A guy who wanted a promotion and a nice Christmas with his pregnant girlfriend. And then Jason Bateman shows up and his whole life becomes a waking nightmare. I felt for him. I really did. I was rooting for him so hard I was basically whispering "don't do it, man, don't scan the bag" at the screen like a crazy person.
The Christmas setting, too. That was a choice. All those twinkling lights and festive music while this horrible, tense thing is happening. It's so wrong. So unsettling. Every time they showed a happy family or a decorated tree, my stomach would clench because I knew what was at stake. It's like the movie is actively trying to ruin Christmas for you. And it almost succeeds.
And the ending. I won't spoil it, but... I kind of loved it. I think. No, I definitely loved it. It was messy. It wasn't a clean, happy bow. It felt... earned. Real. But now that I'm thinking about it... was it a bit too much? Did they really need to go there? I don't know. My brain is so scrambled. I'm happy, I'm stressed, I'm emotionally drained. I need to watch something mindless now. Like a video of a cat playing a tiny piano. Yeah. That's what I need.
Anyway. My heart rate is almost back to normal. Almost.
8/10
-Alex
Trailer English - https://youtu.be/aYOW0z43hyQ?si=RuStw0oYXrOL81R1
Review English - https://youtu.be/iNEl_Ubg23E?si=4qGccVW4Lwqea4AA
Review Hindi - https://youtu.be/DQ7chm5XYvk?si=wGs1K4RCx7slZcAd
EXPLANATION hindi - https://youtu.be/SFyj634tczY?si=GhG18tm4vd7nsRxq
EXPLANATION english - https://youtu.be/xSygtCTlgTM?si=cBdSqtPUKbTNRiho