Starring: Liam Neeson, Julianne Moore, Scoot McNairy, Michelle Dockery, Lupita Nyong’o, Nate Parker, Corey Stoll
Directed by: Jaume Collet-Serra
Synopsis: An air marshal springs into action during a transatlantic flight after receiving a series of text messages that put his fellow passengers at risk unless the airline transfers $150 million into an off-shore account.
I found Non-Stop to be, for the large part, a decent if hardly ground breaking, action movie. It kept you on your toes as to the who’s, where’s and why’s. As usual though it was mostly preposterous and got a bit silly by the end.
Liam Neeson continues his tough guy film career by playing Bill Marks, a washed up, drunk air marshal who is still grieving after the death of his daughter. He boards a plane expecting the same old routine, but some hijackers have other plans. They frame Bill and aim to earn themselves $150m in the process. They do this via text message and a healthy dose of coincidence, perfect timing and luck.
So, whilst Non-Stop doesn’t just rely on outrageous action set-pieces (not until the end anyway) you do need to be prepared to buy into the fact that it’s a bit iffy when it comes to realism. I won’t give anything away but believe me that some how the hijackers get from being on the plane, to making sure this happens, and then this happens and that happens all in the correct order at the right time. It doesn’t bare up to much scrutiny, so I’m not going to bother going down that road.
I think the thing Non-Stop did well was keeping you in suspense as to who is the criminal mastermind behind the anonymous text’s being sent to Liam Neeson. I would just like to state for the record that I guessed who in the first five minutes, although I also confess to changing my mind a few times afterwards!
Liam Neeson was playing his role from Taken, all gruff and agressive, but on an aeroplane. Julianne Moore was decent enough without having a great deal to do. Lupita Nyong’o must have filmed this before 12 Years A Slave because she barely said more than two words.
Non-Stop is a decent enough who-dunnit but never rises to more than that.