Movie Review - Non-Stop

Non-Stop ***½ (PG-13) Liam Neeson stars in this action thriller as a boozing, depressed U.S. Air Marshal, reluctantly boarding a flight to London. We don’t know why he’s such a wreck, but he hardly seems up to the task of protecting his fellow travelers from any kind of threat that may occur. Shortly after takeoff, he starts getting text messages from an unknown person on the plane, claiming that someone will be killed every 20 minutes until Neeson arranges for $150 million to be wired to a numbered account. The texter has significant contact and skills to be able to hack into the secured phone system while remaining unidentifiable, after showing he knows more about Neeson’s private life than anyone should.

Neeson tries to fend off disaster, not knowing who to trust. Even worse, his superiors on the ground and the pilot don’t believe him. As the plot thickens, it includes manipulating events to make Neeson look like the perpetrator. The result is a hybrid of classic whodunnits with the likes of a Die Hard flick in the confined, vulnerable setting of a commercial jet crossing the Atlantic. A slew of passengers and a couple of crewmembers are variably dangled as possible sources of the threat. Neeson delivers his usual level of competence as a flawed hero, whose emotional baggage dwarfs whatever he checked at the terminal.

Director Jaume Collett-Serra, who steered Neeson through another action opus, Unknown (coming out of a coma just to find his identity stolen), does a fine job of churning the action and suspense in the claustrophobic environment the film’s premise imposes. This may not be great art, but it certainly ranks as fine escapism. (2/28/14)