Non-Stop (2014)

Content by Tony Macklin. Originally published on March 1, 2014 @ tonymacklin.net.

Non-Stop is Mistakes on a Plane.

It's not Taken: it's Mistaken.

If you're satisfied to see Liam Neeson, playing Atlas of the air, trying to carry a movie on his wide shoulders, you should enjoy this outing. But if you can't stretch the suspension of your disbelief into the stratosphere, you'll probably be disappointed. The writers hijacked the plot.

Fortunately there is Liam Neeson to try to hold things together as credibility disintegrates into thin air. With his weary frown and solemn vulnerability, he is once again prevails as a likable anti-hero. He's robust and percolating. But it's a bit dismaying to remember that this actor once played Schindler. He's now closer to the Tasmanian Devil.

Neeson whirled on the action scene with Taken, and followed it up with Taken 2. Both were successful, violent action movies. He's going to make Taken 3, but has insisted that it should have no family member taken. At this point in his career, that seems to be the line he has drawn for imagination and creativity.

At 6'4'', the 61-year old actor is still appealing on the action hamster wheel.

Non-Stop is the story of how Bill Marks (Neeson), a used-up U.S. Air Marshal, fights mysterious forces to keep people alive and a plane flying. He gets a text that demands $150 million be wired to a secret account or every 20 minutes someone on the plane will be killed. But he becomes the suspect on the plane. His will and talents are challenged. How will it all end? Don't bother.

The able cast has Julianne Moore as a woman who sits next to Marks, and Mary Dockery and Lupita Nyoung'o play flight attendants. Dockery is in tv's Downton Abbey, and Lupita Nyoung'o is in 12 Years a Slave. Non-Stop seems to put their ascending careers on a downward trajectory.

The three writers are another example of contemporary writers who sling a script together. Many films today aren't connect-the-dots, they're throw-the-dots at the screen. This one is.

Director Jaume Collet-Serra keeps things flying.

Recently on John Stewart's tv show Liam Neeson related his film to Hitchcock. But maybe he said poppycock.

Non-Stop is a wild flight of fancy.

But leave your baggage behind. Like your mind.

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