Imagine if “Non-Stop” was on autopilot and performed by a gaggle of pomeranians, the film still would remain the same piece of entertainment that it currently is.
Effortless, though highly entertaining and ultimately filled with those verdant thrills encased in fossilised form from Charles Bronson actioners of the 1970s, as well as the high flying potboilers of Harrison Ford and Kurt Russell, “Non-Stop” remains an enjoyable film, though not without its caveats.
Jaume Collet-Serra’s “Non-Stop” revives these old tropes and reunites with Liam Neeson (“Unknown”), giving him his latest challenge to contend with: a plane marooned over the Atlantic carrying a terrorist who wishes to wreak havoc aboard the plane.
Nesson is Bill Marks, a tortured federal air marshall with a staggeringly devastating fear of take-offs, who finds himself embroiled in a conspiracy framing him for the hijacking of a transatlantic flight. Receiving a litany of threatening texts, Marks must find the man who plans to kill a passenger every 20 minutes. How Marks handles the situation will determine whether a resolution remains clean or a bloody mess.
Though riddled with accumulating circumstances of increasing ridiculousness, in which Marks manages to eventually accuse an entire flight of passengers that they might be the potential terrorist, “Non-Stop” finds a healthy balance of threading smooth and moody cinematography with some tongue-and-cheek humor.
But what is really going for “Non-Stop” is its galley of well-known talent that fills out the cast.
Michelle Dockery (“Downton Abbey”) plays a discouraged flight attendant often caught up with having to shuttle messages between Marks and the passengers, who are left in the dark. Lupita Nyong’o (“12 Years A Slave”) sports a sleek haircut and expresses confusion, though she’s not given much else to do which remains an unfortunate circumstance. And Julianne Moore (“Carrie”) is given the distinction of an immensely caustic passenger who remains a suspiciously calm bellwether throughout.
Once “Non-Stop” manages to pull into the gate, viewers might be turned off by its conclusive thesis that reveals some peculiar motivations for its itinerant plotter. Stranger events have happened in reality, but this turn has the potential to either leave an audience cold with discontent or fully accepting of the ideology expressed by the perpetrator and off to a spry, but immediate conclusion.
Nevertheless, “Non-Stop” eeks out yet another enjoyable ride for Neeson’s new ventures into bona fide action hero status. It’s highly formulaic and those with a keen sense of these thrillers will be able to plot its contours from the outset. Though given its detractors, “Non-Stop” rarely experiences any delays, but in the end the film can become slightly airless.
