Die HardWhether it’s an action classic is a matter of law, but its place in the pantheon is clouded by a controversial debate that comes up every year around this time: Is it a Christmas movie? This perennial dispute, sparked by an innocuous Slate post 17 years ago, may not be a particularly serious one, but it has the opportunity to intrude into any appreciation of this unflinching, unpretentious gem of a film, whose unfussy craftsmanship can make it seem like after decades of steroidally inflated starcraft, like the work of a medieval craftsman whose techniques have been lost to time.

Luckily for those craving some meat and potatoes between their Thanksgiving turkey and Christmas ham, Jaume Collet-Serra’s Hand luggage hits the spot. The premise, how Die Hardis almost comically simple: Ethan Kopek (Taron Egerton), a TSA agent working at a busy airport on Christmas Eve, must foil a mysterious caller’s plan to smuggle an ominous black suitcase onto a plane without alerting the authorities or endangering the life of his pregnant girlfriend, who is in the crosshairs of a sniper rifle. There’s some character development based on the idea that Ethan, once an aspiring cop, has settled for a dead-end job at the lowest level of public safety and now finally has a chance to redeem himself. But the film knows better than to take this too seriously or ask Egerton to do more than just occasionally frown or flex his biceps. And so no one is tempted to argue about whether it’s a holiday movie or not, Hand luggageThe first scene ends with the villain setting a Christmas tree lot on fire.

The Die Hard The model lives on captivity, but considering that Collet-Serras The shallows While Blake Lively spends a good portion of its running time stranded on a single rock in a shark-infested ocean, an airport might as well be a football stadium. (Die HardIts own sequel, set at Washington Dulles International Airport, suffered from the fact that it’s harder to create a sense of confinement when the location spans several square miles.) But Hand luggageVideo game writer TJ Fixman’s script manages to isolate Ethan, even when he’s surrounded by thousands of nervous travelers. Shortly after an ill-timed push for professional development lands him his first day working at the X-ray machine, a wayward earpiece appears on the conveyor belt, which he sends an anonymous text message telling him to listen to or else. With access to the airport’s security camera network, the man on the phone (played by Jason Bateman and identified only as Traveler in the credits) and his gun-wielding accomplice (Theo Rossi) can see everything Ethan does or tries to do, meaning every attempt Raising the alarm or deviating from their plan could result in him, his girlfriend (Sofia Carson) or almost anyone else getting killed. The safest place for him would be alone, but there is no day or place where that would be more difficult to achieve than at an airport on December 24th.

Made for a modest $47 million. Hand luggage doesn’t have any breathtaking set pieces – unlike Ethan’s Mission: Impossible Namesake, this one isn’t going to save the day by clinging to the outside of a jet plane or climbing the world’s tallest skyscraper. (His last name is a clue to what it’s about; it’s the Russian equivalent of a penny.) But Collet-Serra is the kind of director who finds inspiration in limitations rather than being hampered by them. His only big budget film, Disney’s Jungle cruiseis by far his least fun, but if you give him Liam Neeson and a few subway cars, you’ll be in heaven. There’s one major misstep, a car crash staged as a solid shot through the windshield, its transparent digital fake sticking out like a stuffed animal on a luggage carousel. But on the whole it’s a no-frills affair, and happily so.

Hand luggage opens with the DreamWorks logo and is similar to that of Netflix Rebel Ridgeit’s a film that would have been enjoyable in theaters before taking its rightful place as a living room favorite, watched over and over again, or only partially. So many of Netflix’s original films have been overpriced bores or trash, but it would be nice if this little boost in back-to-basics filmmaking meant the streamer could be a driver for more of the same: clever twists on classic setups, with Integrity and occasional touches of intelligence, but never too far from the basic satisfactions that great genre films offer. Leave a hundred Hand luggageS bloom.