Non-Stop is a fun, but ultimately silly, thriller

I hate flying. Well, not so much the flying but the taking off and landing. So I have something in common with Liam Neeson’s character in the new thriller Non-Stop. In the film, Neeson plays Bill Marks, an alcoholic, depressed air marshall who may or may not be having a beef with his employer. The similarities between the character and myself ended at “afraid to fly.” Of course, that fear of flying makes air marshall not such a good career choice and Marks seems to be at the end of his rope when he’s about to board another flight.

Marks sits next to Jen Summers (Julianne Moore), a seasoned flyer who helps put him at ease during takeoff, and when they’re safely in the air Marks starts getting texts on his secure line with threats to start killing passengers every twenty minutes unless $150 million is wired to a specific account. Turns out the account is in Marks’ name, and he suddenly becomes the prime suspect in the eyes of the feds. Could Marks really be the culprit? Could it be Jen, or the flight attendant Marks is friendly with, or perhaps one of the other red herrings we’re introduced to at the beginning of the film?

Non-Stop is basically an Agatha Christie mystery that takes place on an airplane instead of a train or a steamer heading up the Nile. And without the all-star cast. But it’s still a nifty little whodunnit if you can get past some of the clichéd behavior exhibited by some of the passengers, which is just a lazy way to make you suspect those who are not suspects. Like Jen. Marks puts his trust in her because she was asleep when the texts started, and she helped him identify people who were texting at the same time he was trying to find the texter. Then all of a sudden, she starts acting weird and distant for no reason, and rather unconvincingly, just so Marks and the audience will question her loyalties instead of focusing on who the real culprit may be.

Of course there are other possible (non) suspects like the Muslim doctor who is public enemy number one in the eyes of the hot-headed New York cop, and there are clearly passengers who are never made out to be suspects but may have something to do with the extortion and murder plot. Unlike a train or a boat, it’s hard for people to disappear for long stretches to make the viewer truly question what those characters are up to, so the writers have to rely on the sudden out-of-character behavior to throw you off. Except that ploy just doesn’t work.

The method of murder is clever if a bit far-fetched, and a briefcase bomb late in the plot is really unnecessary and makes for a rather silly disaster movie moment that anyone who knows anything about planes will find utterly ridiculous. I still gripped the arms of my seat though (I know nothing about planes) and needed a nerve pill afterwards.

I know the mainstream critics are going to have a field day eviscerating Non-Stop, but I think it should be an audience pleaser (my screening audience clapped when the plane landed). Director Jaume Collet-Serra handled some big action scenes in another Neeson-starring thriller that I enjoyed, Unknown, and even with the confined space of an airplane cabin, he can still deliver the goods (including a bit of hand-to-hand combat between Neeson and another passenger inside a lavatory). The murder mystery part of the film is fun as you try to guess who is texting Marks, and disaster movie fans get a little action at the end as well. Non-Stop is not great, but it’s good enough for a couple of hours of mindless entertainment if you have nothing better to do.