Non-Stop Review

Director: Jaume Collet-Serra

Starring: Liam Neeson, Julianne Moore, Scoot McNairy, Michelle Dockery, Nate Parker, Corey Stoll, Lupita Nyong’o.

Running Time: 106 minutes.

Certificate: 12A.

Synopsis: An air marshal springs into action during a transatlantic flight after receiving a series of text messages that put his fellow passengers at risk.

Liam Neeson is the new archetypal regular guy in the wrong place, but, much like Bruce Willis, can often be the right man for that moment. Although NON-STOP is fundamentally what you’d expect, it also packs a great punch with tension, strikingly quick-cut action scenes and, very happily, erases all memories of the tall Ballymena man in TAKEN 2.

NON-STOP sees Neeson team up with director Jaume Collet-Serra after previously working on UNKNOWN together, and although that one didn’t cut it, this is a step up, especially when it’s always a daring decision to set your plot in one specific place. Our home for NON-STOP is a flight from New York to London, where Neeson plays Air Marshal Bill Marks, an alcoholic and weary soul worn down from an increasingly hard life that we’re yet to learn about.

We start with a low-level of action, with Bill in his car on a rainy day and splashing whiskey into his coffee. The camera work is focus/off-focus that shifts between droplets on his windshield to pained expressions and seemingly complicated reasons behind his persona. As we move towards boarding the plane, Bill is shown to be there in body but absent in spirit. We then encounter minor snippets of other characters he bumps into as he heads off to embark, including a young girl that shows us his first spark of life. She’s travelling alone and drops her teddy bear ‘Henry‘, but Bill picks it up and returns it to her as they get on the plane; it’s a subtle reminder that he’s got another story to tell.

Then we head for take off – both in plot and literally – when Bill receives a mysterious text on a secure in-flight only data connection and early intensity starts to take shape. The unknown sender wants $150m wired to an account or he’ll kill a passenger. After initially trying to find out whether it’s a hoax or not, his Air Marshal adrenaline kicks in and resolutely begins to seek out the truth. When someone then gets killed in an awesome, tight-spaced fight sequence, the paranoia and mystery is pumped up to a higher level and the game – in the words of Sherlock – is on.

The great thing about NON-STOP is that it sticks to a tried and tested method of intensity but also finds a new angle without being too obvious or giving itself away. It picks up the ‘everybody’s a suspect!’ kilter while also throwing in red herrings because of Bill’s growing distrust towards everyone. Furthermore, we’re impressively pulled into the confined spaces of the aeroplane and that very human fear of restriction that we’ve all encountered on a flight.

Neeson’s plane has been taken and he wants it back and will do whatever it takes to save the people he’s there to look after in this action thrill-ride. There’s great co-starring roles for Julianne Moore, who’s fantastic as always, and a stand out Michelle Dockery. NON-STOP is turbulent, exciting and occasionally ridiculous but does provide light relief at the right points, so we highly recommend making yourselves comfortable and fastening your seatbelt!

[usr=4] NON-STOP is out in UK cinemas now.