Ready for non-stop action?

Film review: Non-Stop

MANILA, Philippines - Since Liam Neeson decided to shift his acting gear to action, with the worldwide box-office success of Taken, he was lined up as a celluloid hero, although a late-bloomer. Taken, shown in 2008, was such a hit that it even had a sequel, which followed in 2012. A third installment is definitely in the works.

Liam did other action flicks like Unknown (with Diane Kruger and January Jones, directed by Jaume Collet-Serra) and The Grey (with Dermot Mulroney, megged by Joe Carnahan).

Currently, Liam adds another action thriller to his film credits. Non-Stop is just exactly what its title suggests. Every moment keeps viewers at the edge of their seats, as the story is fast-paced and not boring. Yet, the film happens only inside an aircraft.

Liam plays US air marshal Bill Marks who is assigned on a trans-atlantic flight from New York to London. He has a troubled past. An alcoholic whose six-year-old daughter died of leukemia, he has to drink before he boards the flight. He also smokes inside the bathroom of the plane and covers the smoke detector with duct tapes. (So that’s the trick, huh?)

Little does Bill know that the flight would be hijacked, so when it happens, he has to deal with every imaginable bad guy on board. The antagonists are not known. From the time Bill receives a text message in his secured mobile phone, everyone on board, even the flight attendants, becomes a suspect.

When Bill attempts to trace the text messages, he creates a stir among the passengers. Viewers will find it hard to identify the hijacker. Your guess is just as good as mine. The text message orders that $150M must be deposited to a bank account or the hijacker will kill a passenger every 20 minutes. Bill later learns the money should be wired under his name. Hence, he is also a suspect.

Liam is supported by mostly good actors in Non-Stop, which reunites him with director Collet-Serra. However, most of Liam’s co-stars are under-utilized in the story. Too bad.

Julianne Moore, whom we saw in such memorable films as End of the Affair, Assassins, Hannibal and Crazy, Stupid, Love, is relegated to a forgettable passenger role as Jen Summers. In the plane, she takes a window seat beside Bill and at one point, becomes a suspected hijacker, too.

Also a suspect is Bill’s fellow air marshal, Jack Hammond (Anson Mount), who gets killed after Bill discovers Hammond is smuggling cocaine in his brief case. Then there’s New York cop Austin Reilly (Corey Stoll), unarmed unlike the air marshals, who later helps Bill in pinning down the hijacker.

There are other passengers — Tom Bowen (Scoot McNairy) and cellphone programmer Zach White (Nate Parker) — who earlier do not figure prominently in the story, so they are not easily suspected to be the bad guys. Then there’s flight attendant Nancy Hoffman (Michelle Dockery), who is often seen with a confused look on her face.

Not to be overlooked is the presence of a young girl-passenger, who is traveling alone. Her role or character might be expendable, but it will be remembered that Collet-Serra also directed the dark, psychological thriller, Orphan in 2009. So it’s not hard to justify the addition of a young girl to Non-Stop.

Recent Oscar Best Supporting Actress winner Lupita Nyong-O (12 Years a Slave) has a forgettable role, unfortunately as one of the flight attendants who hardly has any speaking lines. Even Linus Roache has a very minor role as the captain of the plane David McMillan, who gets poisoned and dies. It will be remembered that Linus was once a lead actor in the 1994 drama, Priest.

Non-Stop runs for barely two hours, yet the time is just enough for the story not to drag or bore viewers. Liam is no Colin Farrell or Jason Statham to still tackle hard-action roles, so a material like Non-Stop is definitely ideal for him.