Netflix has a Christmas movie (well, if “Die Hard is a Christmas movie, this is) about a TSA agent caught up in a diabolical scheme to kill all the passengers on a commercial airplane for some reason or another—that part doesn’t really matter. In “Carry On,” our hero stumbles into the plot and is made the unwilling pawn of the villains, who are ubiquitous, brilliant and high-tech. Through an earpiece, the agent learns that the love of his life who is also pregnant is being watched by the bad guys and will be murdered at any second if he doesn’t use his position to get a piece of luggage containing a device that will release nerve gas through security screening. Suspense, thrills and unexpected twists ensue.
“Carry-On” is a genre that has been flourishing this century thanks to various technology: an innocent citizen is forced to aid a dastardly plat because his or her family member is being held hostage or in the metaphorical (or actual) crosshairs. In 2005, it was Rachel McAdam in “Red Eye” being forced to assist in an assassination that would kill an entire family, children and all. Her father’s was the promised price if she refused. In “The Commuter,” Liam Neeson played an ex-cop on a train where a woman inform him that he must kill a passenger or his family will be harmed; Neeson also has an airplane movie with this basic plot.
In none of these and similar films, however, is the ethical choice as clear as it is in “Carry-On.” Over 250 people will die if the hero (played by Taron Egerton) goes along with the scheme; two, his girlfriend and their unborn child (who presumably doesn’t count by Hollywood’s ethics) will die if he exposes the plot and stops the looming catastrophe. This isn’t a nice choice or an easy one to accept, but it is a clear one, easily addressed by utilitarian principles. The TSA agent should protect the passengers, strangers all, and if two living souls that he cares about must die, die they must. You can throw his life into pot as well.
I won’t spoil the film for you: it’s pretty good. But as in all such films, it is just assumed by the writers than any normal person would do whatever is necessary to save his or her loved ones even if many strangers will die as a result. This is why ethics chess is so critical to being an ethical member of society. These are situations, as unlikely as they are, that everyone must think about before they occur. That is why movies like “Carry-On” have value beyond mere entertainment. Resolve now, when you have the luxury of time and minimal stress, to program your ethics alarms to point you in the right direction should you ever be given the choice of letting many die or one, with the one being someone you know and love.
In these movies the heroes always (well, almost) figure out a way to save everybody (again, almost). In real life, that’s an irresponsible risk to take, relying excessively on moral luck.
Ethics Alarms 
It is interesting, that’s for sure. And yet, I’m willing to bet almost everyone would choose the family over the 250 people. It’s certainly easy to be an utilitarian if your not emotionally attached. One of the things I think Republicans tried to demonstrate by sending illegals up north and flooding sanctuary states/cities.
As I said, I think everyone needs to think hard about this hypothetical and resolve in advance the right way to respond…which is to choose the 250 strangers over the one you love—the Golden Rule argues that you should make this choice if your own life were the cost, and that your beloved would do—or should do– the same in your position.
Thanks for the nudge toward this. We will check it out. I think it is Taron Egerton (Eagleton is a close second) and he has provided some good performances over the relatively short number of years of his career. I didn’t see the Elton bio-pic, however.
I am not surprised that the writers assume the public will choose family first and I think they are correct. Most of the public is shrugging of the Biden pardon of his son just for this reason.
Typo fixed: I hate that particular typo species, when my mental autofill digs into my subconscious and types something from a long dead file. I had the right name right in front of me, and defaulted to McGovern’s ill-fated VP pick.
On a road trip back in 2014, we visited the Ronald Reagan Minuteman Missile site in North Dakota. We were taken down the elevator into the area where servicemen stationed there would spend shifts with access to the hardware that launched missiles. Our guide told us that the military preferred to station young unmarried people here because they were concerned that a married serviceman with children would, perhaps, balk at launching missiles if ordered to do so.
Which is basically the set up for the movie “War Games.”
I’d forgotten about that opening! Yes, having to pull a gun on a paralyzed-by-fear serviceman who happens to be sitting at the control monitor when the worst happens is probably something they hoped to avoid.
I did not like this movie.
I thought it far too unbelievable, too unbelievable to suspend disbelief, even for a thriller.
Without giving much away, the bad guys were too perfect. There was no obstacle they faced that could not be immediately and decisively remedied. There was an omniscience and omnipotence that was simply unbelievable.
There were too many times when things happened too perfectly, even when they didn’t.
As a result, there was a number of times when I thought, “Do something NOW! If you make a mess now, there is no way they can proceed!” But, of course, the bad guys always had a answer.
But, I think that is part and parcel of a new type of storytelling, one that may have begun with Enemy of the State. Technology almost plays a character in itself. It cuts whatever corners need cutting to propel the story along. As a result, the story, and I think Carry-On fits this characterization, becomes a sort of morality play. Technology steps in to clear up any of the messiness in real life and forces the audience to face an unambiguous and inescapable conflict, even if it does so by unbelievable devices. After all, when it comes to pathos, the Greek Gods are no longer believable vehicles. It’s all Deus ex Technica!
Then, you throw in all of your typical tropes (pregnant wife, underachieving main character whose failings are fully explainable (I believe this was Nietzsche’s complaint about Euripides) through a back-story that is gradually revealed through an insightful interlocutor, tensions between various characters, all intermingled with various episodes of hi-jinx, slapstick, and a detonation timer that has to be defused here and there).
Eventually, I settled into my resignation about what the story was and then I felt a little bit better about what I was watching.
-Jut
All true, which is why I regard it as an ethics movie. Like many ethics hypotheticals, the messy details of reality are secondary
One thing that may be missing from your analysis is that, at the outset, I don’t think the calculus was clear.
I thought it was just, “let this bag through or your wife will die.” Once he was hooked on doing the bad thing did the weighing of human life come up. Then, the bad decisions just compound themselves.
-Jut
True, but once the calculus WAS clear, so was his duty. Of course, when someone tells a TSA agent that someone will be killed if he doesn’t let a piece of luggage through that would be flagged otherwise, he probably should figure out that it isn’t a puppy.
I’m waiting for a movie where terrorists kidnap a man’s wife so that they can get him to help them carry out their terrorist plot. The man thinks “Great! I can be rid of my wife, take up with my girlfriend, save a fortune in the divorce and be a hero in saving hundreds of lives.” What a great win all round. What could go wrong?
There is a movie that’s almost on the nose; Ruthless People (1986). It’s not a thriller or suspense or cerebral; it’s a slapstick/dark comedy.
Danny DeVito is planning to kill his wife (Bette Midler) in order to receive a large inheritance. Shortly before DeVito was going to murder his wife, he comes home to find that she’s been kidnapped.
When the kidnappers make their ransom demands, instead of arranging to pay the ransom, DeVito aggressively antagonizes his wife’s captors…
I won’t spoil the rest.