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“You can’t swing a Christmas tree right now without encountering one of the many dubious seasonal offerings plastered across Netflix’s front page like cheap tinsel,” said James Dyer in “Empire.”

“Despite all the sugary schmaltz and the candy cane cliché, the streamer also gave us a surprise in the form of this unexpectedly watchable airport thriller.”

“Wrapped tightly”

Taron Egerton plays Ethan, a security guard operating the X-ray machine at LAX on Christmas Eve when he is blackmailed into helping a mysterious traveler (Jason Bateman) smuggle a deadly nerve agent onto a flight. The film exploits its “stressful setting with all its might,” and the “serpentine script keeps us on the wrong foot the entire time.” It’s not a big movie, but it’s “thoroughly entertaining” and the “indisputable star at the top of this year’s Netflix tree.”

The characters in this film are all a bit familiar, said Glenn Kenny in the New York Times – “What do you know?” Ethan has a beautiful wife whose life is in danger and who happens to be pregnant with their first child! But “the suspense mechanisms of TJ Fixman’s script, which support a fat-free running time of nearly two hours, are taut throughout”; and for an actor who has spent his career playing “relatively likeable characters,” Bateman is impressively “vile” here.

“Filling chunk of gross entertainment”

The story makes a few “stupid evasions”, said Tim Robey in The Daily Telegraph, but “let’s face it” this is not a film to approach for “strict plausibility”. It’s meant to “fill a quiet Christmas Eve on Netflix when we can’t stand the cold.” At this level, it’s a filling piece of gross entertainment—as carb-heavy and green-free as the baked potato you’re likely to eat with it.”