braddtastic

To take a different tack than the other reviews I've read here, I'll just say Carry-On was just the Christmas thriller I was looking for. In the same vein as Die Hard, but not cluttered up by countless F bombs that added nothing to the story. There is violence, but it is focused and purposeful, and not everyone makes it to the end.

The film starts slow, but picks up speed quickly enough and when the suspense ratchets up it doesn't let up. Production quality is very good, and I enjoyed getting to see the LAX location from a very different perspective than other films provide. The film is well-cast, with the strongest performers in the critical roles. Some characters could have been fleshed out more, but the editing is crisp so I don't begrudge the choices that were made for great pacing.

This is a film that drew my multi-tasking family off their phones and held their attention tightly. Blockbuster films like Die Hard may be a bit more polished in places, but Carry-On brings something new we haven't seen in a long time. Carry-On is a film you'll want to watch again.

This show has a great opportunity, given the delays resulting from the SAG and writers strikes, but something is just off at this point. First, why do we need an NCIS in Sydney? It's not a political hotspot, the 80's era fascination with all things Australia are behind us, and within the script a case was never made very strongly.

The cast is mostly very good and the locations are beautiful to look at, but the writing is uneven at best. For example, Mavournee Hazel Is a talented actress but her lines are terrible and the social anxiety afflicting her character is so poorly constructed that it's eye rolling far more often than it's convincing. Olivia Swann needed better direction from the get go, but seems to be settling into her role without trying to be the female Steve McGarrett ("I always drive the car, even in foreign countries I'm not licensed in!'). As she's allowed to utilize her charm and competence I suspect her character will work better.

I'm giving it another episode or two to get better, but currently I don't see any shame in punching out. Why are we doing NCIS in Sydney again???

The director and editors of this movie seem to have been very aware they were following a tried-and true Hallmark formula, so they met their running time deadline by skipping over incredibly vast pieces of plot and character development. This makes some of the plot and dialogue awkward at best, but overall it works as an enjoyable film.

Jessy Schram carries the show, but the rest of the cast do a nice job as well (particularly Barbara Pollard). The character of Abby was clearly written for a much younger child, but Lilah Fitzgerald does a terrific job with the part despite this challenge.

The cinematography and musical scoring were well done. Together with the warm cast, this leaves the viewer regretfully reflecting on how his film would have benefited from significantly more more script discipline, biting off less and fully developing what they went with. Alternately, I like to think there is footage from a full movie that got left on the cutting room floor, and is waiting to be reassembled into the fully developed film I know it could be.