Liam Neeson has had career arc, starring in films such as as Schindler's List, Star Wars, and Taken. His latest film Non-Stop is a high flying thriller that banks off of his popularity from the Taken films. Neeson stars as Bill Marks, an alcoholic Air Marshall on a trans-Atlantic flight who receives cryptic messages from someone on board claiming that someone will die every twenty minutes. As the deaths mount, he is forced to turn to desperate measures which then leads the majority of the flight to believe that he is the one hijacking the plane. The movie's release is further complicated by real world events like the disappearance of Malaysian Flight 370 This contributed to the film being a bit more chilling than it in normal circumstances. Julianne Moore is also a major character in the film and recent Academy Award winner Lupita Nyong'o also has a role.
While I predicted a fair amount of the plot twists, I felt that a major one at the end really set the film apart from more generic thrillers. The acting was serviceable and the film did a good job creating a decent cast of characters and suspects. Neeson's character was sympathetic but deeply flawed due to his alcoholism and family issues. The film is not the campy spectacle that Harrison Ford's Air Force One was and takes into account the higher level of security and awareness in our post 9/11 world. However I would have to say that the CGI effects of the plane at the end of the film were definitely lacking. The film is not terribly big or ambitious and focused on the inflight events with little contact from the outside world for most of the film. I do like how the film graphically showed Marks' text messages and incorporated media coverage of the event. While the Non-Stop is not the roller coaster ride of Taken, it still is a good way to spend an afternoon.
Image from Wikipedia & trailer from MovieClips Trailers on Youtube.
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