Last updated on December 28, 2014
Non-Stop is the latest film in the long line of movies created since the Liam Neeson Action Hero Renaissance of 2008. Since Taken, the guy hasn’t taken a break from playing the exact same role – a grizzled old man, worn down by divorce/death of daughter/death of wife/alcoholism/some combination of -isms thereof who must rise to the occasion and survive/save his daughter/save family member/save everyone/help everyone try to survive. He also tends to say LOOK AT ME or VIOLENT ONE-LINER while doing HAND TO HAND COMBAT in TIGHT SPACES or EXOTIC LOCALES.
Frankly, you know what you are going to see when you see Liam Neeson on the cover of a plane hijacking, and that’s just fine with me. What worked about Taken, relative to the action genre in the past, came from its realism. Simply put, anyone that skilled in combat with enough motivation would take no prisoners, and if he did he would enact severe bodily harm on their person – especially if they took your daughter (or WHERE’S MY DAUGHTER, I mean). That’s what made Taken so compelling! For a PG-13, it contains a simply brutal sequence of action setpieces that were both compelling, exciting, and horrifying all at once. How far would he go? In fact, how far would YOU go if the same thing happened? I think it provokes some rather direct questions as Liam Neeson tears through foreign people like a machine. As a fusion of low and high art simultaneously, I think Taken takes the cake (har har) for being a really smart action film.
And Non-Stop does not fail to continue to make that same setup, however different, compelling. This time, Liam Neeson’s an air marshal who is texted by some random person on a plane. Said anonymous person promises that, every twenty minutes, one person on the plane will die unless he/she receives 150 million dollars wired to their account. Of course, the account is actually in Neeson’s name, and the hijackers are actually trying to make it look like Neeson’s character conducted the hijacking. Thus, our air marshal hero needs to find the person responsible and put a stop to it.
Thankfully, Non-Stop really IS non-stop in creating a murder mystery on a plane, with an ever-ticking clock that takes place in literal real-time. It also extrapolates the problems inherent in finding a person on a plane who’s just texting you, and how you would actually go about finding the person on the plane. There’s a constant tension throughout the film, and it rarely pulls a cheap trick or stunt on you. No random deus ex machina person appears and says “AHA! I did it!” Instead, the culprit sit right under your nose. If you pay attention, it shouldn’t seem too hard, yet the plot works in a way that the obvious information just isn’t the focus of any particular scene. Though the phrase often finds overuse, it does keep you guessing until the very end, and that’s refreshing!
Of course, once the set reveal actually happens, you get exactly the ending you expect, but how else could you imagine it ending? Nobody really wants a bad ending because you want to see relatable Liam Neeson with character flaws succeed even when the odds are stacked against him. That goes especially for the fact he’s a drunk, and he has legitimate reasons for it, yet everyone on the outside (and inside) begin to suspect him (including the audience). It’s the kind of subtle mystery thriller that shows, and doesn’t tell. People speak in natural language, and the pieces make sense without talking down to the audience.
In the end, though, Non-Stop does not really present any higher meaning. It functions best when running through its plot machinations and twists than on emotion, which accounts for why Julianne Moore adds little, if anything, to the proceedings. She acts wonderfully in character dramas, but there’s not much material for her to use except the very basic stuff given to her here. In that sense, then, I don’t think it’s quite as good as Taken. On the other hand, Non-Stop will definitely entertain you, and you won’t feel like the movie thinks you’re dumb or stupid after you watch it – there’s something to be said for active audience participation, and Non-Stop succeeds at that.
So yes, I am pleasantly surprised with this movie. I went into it with Taken 2 expectations (read: Taken 2 isn’t very good), and ended up enjoying it a heck of a lot. If you like well-written action movies that don’t involve super heroes (of which I am finding myself incredibly bored), than this probably goes right up your alley.
