“Someone on this flight is threatening to kill someone every twenty minutes unless 150 million dollars is transferred to this account number,” says Bill Marsh (Liam Neeson), an Air Marshal on the hunt for a killer on board a transatlantic flight at 40,000 feet after receiving a series of mysterious text messages in the action thriller Non-Stop.
After reluctantly accepting his assignment and boarding the non-stop flight from New York City to London, Bill ends up sitting next to Jen Summers (Julianne Moore), who chats with him during take-off to calm his obviously shaky nerves. It seems Bill doesn’t like to fly, which makes his job being an Air Marshal curious. It’s not long after they’re in the air that Bill receives the menacing text messages.
Puzzled as to how the killer broke the secure network and is able to send him messages on his phone, and not knowing if it’s a sick joke or for real, Bill decides to take it seriously and follow protocol by informing the pilot.
Both the pilot and Bill half suspect it might just be an elaborate hoax until the first dead body turns up, and now the race is on to find the mystery killer on board before he kills again. Bill has another twenty minutes to meet the ransom demands, and he’s forced into trying to find the culprit while not disclosing to the passengers what’s really going on. Not knowing who he can trust, everyone on board – even the crew – are suspects, with Bill slowly becoming paranoid and unsteady in his search for the unknown murderer.
Preposterous and silly, Non-Stop benefits greatly from a strong leading actor but fails miserably to deliver a solid, suspenseful thriller. The film is filled with terrible cringe-worthy dialogue and actually gets worse as it goes along.
There are, perhaps, two positive things to point out about the movie: One, Liam Neeson as the burned-out Air Marshal Bill Marsh. Neeson knows exactly how to play the in-over-his-head hero perfectly and has now become the action star of his generation after tackling films such as Taken, Taken 2, The Grey, and Unknown.
The second is the production and look of the aircraft where most of the drama takes place. Most movies like this often have huge, spacious room on the plane, which makes it look unbelievable and impossible to get off the ground. Non-Stop does a decent job of creating a claustrophobic and realistic atmosphere on the plane. Though it’s not as good as the movie Red Eye starring Rachel McAdams, it’s still noteworthy.
Unfortunately, it’s not enough to save this ridiculous air disaster of a film. It has plot holes a mile long and, throughout the script, painfully bad dialogue with characters saying and doing things that either make no sense or are just plain stupid. Plus, there’s a twist near the end that’s sure to offend most of the audience…no it won’t be revealed here…it’s NOT worthy of being revealed here.
Non-Stop is a ludicrous, absurd suspense thriller minus any and all suspense, and moviegoing audiences should make sure they miss the flight.
GRADE: D
Non-Stop is rated PG-13 for intense sequences of action and violence, some language, sensuality and drug references.
