Review - Non-Stop (2014)

Starring Liam Neeson, Julianna Moore and Nate Parker.
Directed by Jaume Collet-Serra
Runtime: 1hr 50mins.

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.

Liam Neeson continues his spell of bad-assery in this plane thriller Non-Stop. Though a flawed film, it's nonetheless a good recovery from his last action stinker Taken 2. I like this current phase of Liam Neeson because it has produced a few enjoyable action flicks and also cements Liam as one of our best action heroes today.

The Good?

Liam plays our lead character Bill Marks, a U.S air marshal who finds himself roped up in a scheme aboard a flight heading to London. One of his passengers sends him a series of text messages demanding a 150 million dollars or a passenger dies after every 20 minutes. The movie evolves into a guessing game and the race is on for Bill to find the perpetrator aboard the flight. One thing that Non-Stop does superbly is to build tension. Everybody on the plane felt like a suspect. The whole setup on the plane is commendable; it becomes rather difficult for Bill as things begin to turn for the worst. The movie conceals the identities well so I found myself quite nervous and guessing until the end. The performances are good from the cast and Liam Neeson delivers a solid performance filled with determination and enough emotion. As expected, not many fight scenes but the ones present on the tight spaces on the plane were pretty great. I liked that the director wasted no time in getting us onto the plane and into the chaos. Amidst the tense buildup, he still makes time to develop our main characters.

The Bad?

After a riveting and tense buildup, I know everyone is dying to find out who the perpetrators are and how they were able to accomplish all that they did aboard the flight. Unfortunately it felt like the writers ran out of ideas and decided to go with the cheapest revelation as possible. I was a bit disappointed with the twist, mainly because it now left a few holes within the plot. I was hoping for a much more grounded reason of our antagonists actions (even they seemed confused in that scene), or maybe a purpose stemming from Liam's character. Too bad, the superb buildup of the movie was wasted just to highlight some stale political message.

I felt a bit cheated at the end but overall Non-Stop was an overall decent thrill ride.

Rating: 6.5/10