Liam Neeson stars as Bill Marks, an alcoholic air marshal who doesn’t like to fly. While working a transatlantic flight, Marks receives mysterious text messages, with the sender threatening to kill a passenger (or crew member) every twenty minutes unless $150 million is transferred into a bank account…an account which just happens to be in Marks’ name. The jittery, hungover air marshal finds himself manipulated into all manner of compromising situations, increasingly frequent violent outbursts, and some treatment of passengers that would make any civil libertarian very nervous. His inability to locate or prove the existence of the voiceless killer leaves the passengers (and maybe the odd audience member) doubting his sanity, and wondering if they’ve been hijacked. Neeson brings a convincingly hungover and haggard performance to the table in addition to his usual presence, although he never approaches the intensity we’ve come to expect from his other action roles. His more paranoid moments recall the unhinged Peyton Westlake of Darkman more than anything else, while his fellow passengers (and/or prisoners) who include Julianne Moore, Nate Parker, and Downton Abbey‘s Michelle Dockery, are little more than in-flight snacks, there to play off Mr. Neeson’s increasingly frustrated and desperate performance or to have the camera cast accusatory glances at them. Non-Stop does try, though…at least in its first half. It almost succeeds in making you doubt Neeson’s embattled air marshal for a minute or two. If you (like this writer) don’t particularly love to fly, that may help the generally unsettled, paranoid atmosphere take effect and make some of the film’s more difficult to swallow conceits go down easier. But there are only so many times you can let the camera linger ominously on different passengers and crew in order to cast suspicion before you start shaming the director for crying wolf. And no, readers, that wasn’t a joke about The Grey. And speaking of impact, I don’t think it’s too much of a spoiler to let you all in on the fact that what goes up must, indeed, come down at some point, so that plane is going to have to land…and I’m sure you can guess it isn’t an easy landing. Unfortunately, this is accomplished via some not entirely convincing special effects, and the quick bit of spectacle actually ends up marring Non-Stop‘s more effective and subtle moments. Despite its best efforts to give us something new, Non-Stop never really gets above the clouds. Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter for all news updates related to the world of geek. And Google+, if that’s your thing!
title: “Non Stop Review” ShowToc: true date: “2025-07-03” author: “Alycia Jones”
In Non-Stop, he plays Bill Marks, a depressive United States air marshal who drinks and smokes a lot. During a routine overnight flight from New York to London, he begins to receive a series of menacing texts from an anonymous passenger. “Are you ready to do your duty?” asks one. Another could easily be the strap line for every Neeson action thriller recently made: “How far would you go to save these people?” Non-Stop sees Neeson reteam with Spanish director Jaume Collet-Serra, and this is a far more satisfying effort than their previous collaboration, Unknown, which started off well but lost its way somewhere in the middle. Recalling those old Airport thrillers, or the underrated Wes Craven genre entry Red Eye, Non-Stop introduces its passengers one by one, disaster movie or whodunnit style, giving Bill Marks – and us – reasons to be suspicious of each and every one of them. The supporting cast includes Julianne Moore as Marks’ radiant single-serving friend, Linus Roache as a co-pilot, Anson Mount as a fellow air marshal, 12 Years A Slave’s Lupita Nyong’o as a hostess, and Monsters’ Scoot McNairy as one of several nervy passengers. It would be more than a stretch to say that Non-Stop is a believable thriller, but it takes a ‘frog in a pan of slowly heating water’ approach, in that the level of absurdity creeps up so slowly that you don’t necessarily notice how daft everything is until events have spiralled gloriously out of control. Although the script is hardly award-winning material – and some of the dialogue is wince-inducingly on-the-nose – it’s entertaining without drifting into Snakes On A Plane-like self-parody. Neeson gets up to a bit of the bone-crunching fisticuffs that proved a hit in Taken, but Non-Stop is more about suspense than action. It touches on a nerve still raw even 13 years after the tragic events of 9-11; the pressure-cooker sense of unease and distrust that permeates air port security line-ups and continues into every flight – a repressed paranoia that only needs a gentle nudge to come bursting out into full view. Non-Stop isn’t a classic thriller, but as an inconsequential night out at the pictures, it is an awful lot of fun. The unfussy, snappy direction helps, along with a few dollops of crunchy sound design that make the few flashes of action seem a lot more brutal than they are. But really, the hero of the piece is Neeson. Like a good commercial pilot, he brings Non-Stop into land with charisma, cool assurance and more than a touch of class. Non-Stop is out on the 28th February in the UK. Follow our Twitter feed for faster news and bad jokes right here. And be our Facebook chum here.
