Non-Stop

Liam Neeson continues his reign as the Harrison Ford of the new millennium with Non-Stop, an airborne suspense thriller about a sixty-something alcoholic air marshal who must stop a mysterious killer on a flight from New York to London. Neeson invests more conviction in the generic heroes of he plays in B-grade films like this (and Taken, Taken II, Unknown and The Grey) than Ford, Bruce Willis, Kurt Russell, or any actor I can imagine. And unlike the idealized men working against impossible external forces that use to populate this kind of movie, Neeson’s characters always represent some form of deeply flawed or wounded masculinity; he must fight his own demons as much as the evil bad-guys. The solemnity and heft of his performances actually make these disposable action blockbusters worth seeing, even though they’re not especially good. 

Non-Stop does not belong in the same league as Wolfgang Petersen’s Air Force One (1997) or Robert Schwentke’s Fligthplan (2005), its more akin to Kevin Hooks’ Passenger 57 (1992) or Stuart Baird’s Executive Decision (1996). But, like those movies, Non-Stop delivers the goods to the audience. It’s full of enjoyably larger-than-life performances, ticking-clock suspense, and inventive twists and turns (there are more red herrings on this flight then there were snakes on Samuel J. Jackson’s plane).

Alas, the script is too dumb to rate this film any higher than two stars. It features far too many logical absurdities, as well as inexcusably ham-fisted dialogue that strains credibility. Also director Jaume Collet-Serra (Unknown) doesn’t bring anything fresh to the fight scenes, which are all executed in the standard ultra-close-up, rapidly cut style where it is never clear exactly what’s happening until it’s all over. Still, there have been so many Die-Hard-on-a-plane movies in the past 30 years, that I’m pleasantly surprised the formula still has life in it. I guess our collective fear of flying and hijacking makes this a sub-genre as indestructible as Neeson’s latter-day career as an ageing action star.