Non-Stop (***)
Directed
by: Jaume Collet-Serra
Starring:
Liam Neeson, Julianne Moore, Michelle Dockery, Nate Parker, Linus Roache, Scoot
McNairy, Corey Stoll, Lupita Nyong’o, Anson Mount, Omar Metwally, Jason Butler
Harner
Seen:
April 12th 2014
***
Out of ****
Non-Stop
is another one for Liam Neeson’s action movie career takeover. If I had to
pigeonhole it I’d say it fits in just about level with Taken 2. It is a high-adrenaline,
relatively low on plot movie that should never ever be shown as an in-flight
movie, and apart from a few (pretty bad) flaws it is certainly a tense and
enjoyable way to spend almost two hours. The premise of the movie is good, but
the execution is not exactly as good as it could have been.
Air
Marshall Bill Marks (Neeson) arrives at the airport and has a last drink before
moving along through security to board his flight to London, Non-Stop from New
York. Halfway into the flight, across the Atlantic Ocean, Marks starts
receiving messages on the Marshall’s messaging network. The messages very quickly
escalates to a serious threat, someone on the plane will be killed every 20
minutes until a ransom of $150m is paid into a numbered account. Marks starts
investigating the issue with another Marshall on the plane, and when serious
irregularities in the conduct of this Marshall surface, the two Marshalls
engage in a fight to the death, exactly on the 20 minute mark.
Events
spiral out of Marks’ control as he tries to convince everyone of the truth of
the situation, but thing look more and more to be Marks’ responsibility, and after
Marks searches some possible suspects on the plane, he is blindsided by a group
of civilians headed up by an NYPD Officer (Stoll), and Marks now has to
convince everyone that he is not the threat, but is being framed. While Marks
fights to find the true culprits and convince every one of his intentions, an
additional threat is also discovered making resolution of everything a race
against time to save lives. With only one pilot left, an unknown threat roaming
the plane, and a menacing fighter plane escort, events barrel towards a tragic
ending unless everything works out just right, and Marks doesn’t have many
people on his side to accomplish this.
The
movie is well crafted with some good plot devices raising the tension to high
levels. A combat scene in an airplane toilet stall is exhilarating, and it is
not the only exciting thing in the movie. Liam Neeson is great as the flawed
hero fighting both accurate and false perceptions of him, and he has some great
interaction with other characters on the plane, including Jen (Moore), a
passenger seated next to him, Nancy (Dockery), an air hostess, and the pilots,
Captain McMillan (Roache) and Kyle Rice (Harner). The movie dissolves into
ridicule for a bit during its tense ending, as a cringe-inducing plot device is
used to raise tension to breaking point, but this is only a momentary
distraction in what is an enjoyable enough movie. It’s been a long time since I’ve
seen a movie ending with a gathering of emergency vehicles and characters
looking for each other on the tarmac, and I have to say that I rather enjoyed
it, however clichéd it may have been.
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