Liam Neeson is as always brilliant in these kind of roles as the tough and resourceful loner battling against overwhelming odds. The plot is well set up, stretches credibility, but is still acceptable with some willing suspension of disbelief. The tension, the acting and the slow build-up to a fitting climax are all excellently executed. A well crafted modern triller.
Non-Stop, the latest in Liam Neeson's action career finds him taken to new heights. I have absolutely no problem with these pictures, which are basically a genre in themselves. That's because I'm an action fan through and through and for me a superhero film doesn't fill the void of those 80's and 90's classic actioners. Give me Liam's giant frame smashing the faces of his enemies and I'll be at least partially satisfied.
It's directed by Jaume Collet-Serra who previously did Unknown with Liam Neeson in 2011 so he knows how to handle him. Sadly, Non-Stop suffers from the overly used blue digital colour correction you see in a lot of movies these days but the production as a whole is pretty solid. The $50 million budget only really shows itself in some of the CGI sequences which aren't very common anyway.
Non-Stop starts off a lot like The Grey does. Liam Neeson's character is a depressed alcoholic air marshal who has to find the drive to do his job. Strangely, he's also afraid of flying so he's pretty far up the creek. On this particular flight, he gets a series of mysterious text messages threatening to kill passengers unless money is transferred into a particular account.
Typical characters you'd see in a movie about flying in an airplane are all here. It's funny how there just has to be a solitary kid flying who's just there to raise the stakes because no one wants to see a kid get killed. All the same, I do think that hiding who the villain really is was well done.
The action sequences which let's be serious, are the most important parts here, are relatively well done. Some fights are better than others with at times a little too much shaky cam but enjoyable all the same. The best in action movie cheese shows up when there's a slow motion shot of Bill Marks catching a gun in midair which is all in good fun. Liam Neeson is quite simply a beast of a man and you would never think he's 61. Just look at those hands! He makes a bottle of scotch/rum/whatever dark alcohol it is look like a baby bottle for God sakes.
The motivation of the villain is really quite silly though and one thing that sticks out in my mind is that Bill Marks would never be a federal air marshal given his past. Events happen that are also a bit overly convenient but the case for Non-Stop is Liam Neeson. I will gladly pay for more Liam Neeson action films because the action movie genre needs this. It performed quite well compared to its budget and I hope Liam's momentum continues. Non-Stop is carried by Neeson who can make even a silly speech have some actual gravitas.
Back when I was working at the theater, I had an employee whose movie opinion I was constantly frustrated with but at the same time respected. He loved films I hated and hated films I loved, but always explained his reasoning with sound logic. When this film came out I was convinced it was going to just be another vehicle for Liam Neeson to be a badass and fuck up bad guys. I knew it wasn’t going to be like “The Grey” which was one of the better winter releases of the last couple years. I expected something along the lines of Taken 2 meets Red Eye. My friend lauded the tense build up and reveal being unexpected. Well, he one of those two things correct and one entirely wrong. The latter ended up ruining the entire film for me.
The synopsis above pretty much sums up the plot. Liam Neeson plays an alcoholic air marshall who has zero people skills unless it involves making little girls happy. Julianne Moore literally plays one of the most useless characters I’ve ever seen on film. He character was not needed in ANYTHING. She served no purpose to the plot other than to shift the suspicion from time to time and to be a person Liam Neeson has to save. Julianne Moore is completely wasted in this movie. In fact, the whole cast is pretty much wasted besides Neeson, who still wasn’t that great. Lupita Nyong’o, who won a fucking Oscar, has maybe three or four speaking lines in the entire film, and the ones she has are lines that could have been given by anybody. It’s just really strange how misused the entire cast was.
Despite the cast, the first half of the movie was actually pretty damn engaging and creative. The use of the text messaging, while annoying to most, actually didn’t bother me that much. I was intrigued by how this person was killing people and still being able to text while doing so. Is it stupid? Hell yeah it is, but I was still sucked into figuring it out. The 180 that both the trailer and the synopsis spoils made for some interesting plot devices and I actually wanted to know how Liam Neeson was going to get out of it.
Then the final third started to happen. We start to learn who the real criminal is and I was lost. It was such a disappointment when the big shocker of a twist happens and all I could think was “Really?”. The action in the last third was completely bonkers and the whole problem with the cast came into full play because I didn’t care about anybody anymore. It ruined the whole film for me.
There were ultimately some good techniques used in the first half of the film. The end and the fact that none of the characters had any depth save for Liam Neeson and you really start to lose your audience. It ended up being an average film with a shit ending. I wouldn’t waste your time unless it’s on cable and you have nothing better to do.
At this point I think that Neeson is deliberately typecasting himself as a shoot em' up action star. Not his worst movie by any means, it manages to straddle the fine line between ridiculous action and perplexing whodunit rather decently. The 3rd act was rather weak compared to the rest of the movie but to be honest I can't think of any endings to this kind of action flick that wouldn't be cliché.
Add your comment
Comments 1 - 15 of 28
lachyas
I've seen a lot of movies in my time, and this is definitely one of them.piratediscoking
Utter crap. Very enjoyable.Mustafacc
The Okay-est movie of all time.Borvaran
Liam Neeson is always OK. He won't die, he'll be the hero of the day and I will have some fun.Zeltaebar
Liam Neeson is as always brilliant in these kind of roles as the tough and resourceful loner battling against overwhelming odds. The plot is well set up, stretches credibility, but is still acceptable with some willing suspension of disbelief. The tension, the acting and the slow build-up to a fitting climax are all excellently executed. A well crafted modern triller.CinemaDump
Non-Stop, the latest in Liam Neeson's action career finds him taken to new heights. I have absolutely no problem with these pictures, which are basically a genre in themselves. That's because I'm an action fan through and through and for me a superhero film doesn't fill the void of those 80's and 90's classic actioners. Give me Liam's giant frame smashing the faces of his enemies and I'll be at least partially satisfied.It's directed by Jaume Collet-Serra who previously did Unknown with Liam Neeson in 2011 so he knows how to handle him. Sadly, Non-Stop suffers from the overly used blue digital colour correction you see in a lot of movies these days but the production as a whole is pretty solid. The $50 million budget only really shows itself in some of the CGI sequences which aren't very common anyway.
Non-Stop starts off a lot like The Grey does. Liam Neeson's character is a depressed alcoholic air marshal who has to find the drive to do his job. Strangely, he's also afraid of flying so he's pretty far up the creek. On this particular flight, he gets a series of mysterious text messages threatening to kill passengers unless money is transferred into a particular account.
Typical characters you'd see in a movie about flying in an airplane are all here. It's funny how there just has to be a solitary kid flying who's just there to raise the stakes because no one wants to see a kid get killed. All the same, I do think that hiding who the villain really is was well done.
The action sequences which let's be serious, are the most important parts here, are relatively well done. Some fights are better than others with at times a little too much shaky cam but enjoyable all the same. The best in action movie cheese shows up when there's a slow motion shot of Bill Marks catching a gun in midair which is all in good fun. Liam Neeson is quite simply a beast of a man and you would never think he's 61. Just look at those hands! He makes a bottle of scotch/rum/whatever dark alcohol it is look like a baby bottle for God sakes.
The motivation of the villain is really quite silly though and one thing that sticks out in my mind is that Bill Marks would never be a federal air marshal given his past. Events happen that are also a bit overly convenient but the case for Non-Stop is Liam Neeson. I will gladly pay for more Liam Neeson action films because the action movie genre needs this. It performed quite well compared to its budget and I hope Liam's momentum continues. Non-Stop is carried by Neeson who can make even a silly speech have some actual gravitas.
6/10
jamesmcavoy
I'm actually surprised at how good this was. Not the best film ever, mind you, but it was really good for a random action flick.chunkylefunga
Not a bad outing for Neeson.I'd give it a 7 as I like films like this but I imagine the average person would give it a 6.
MrDoog
Nothing special but an okay movie if you want to kill an hour or two.The_Comatorium
Back when I was working at the theater, I had an employee whose movie opinion I was constantly frustrated with but at the same time respected. He loved films I hated and hated films I loved, but always explained his reasoning with sound logic. When this film came out I was convinced it was going to just be another vehicle for Liam Neeson to be a badass and fuck up bad guys. I knew it wasn’t going to be like “The Grey” which was one of the better winter releases of the last couple years. I expected something along the lines of Taken 2 meets Red Eye. My friend lauded the tense build up and reveal being unexpected. Well, he one of those two things correct and one entirely wrong. The latter ended up ruining the entire film for me.The synopsis above pretty much sums up the plot. Liam Neeson plays an alcoholic air marshall who has zero people skills unless it involves making little girls happy. Julianne Moore literally plays one of the most useless characters I’ve ever seen on film. He character was not needed in ANYTHING. She served no purpose to the plot other than to shift the suspicion from time to time and to be a person Liam Neeson has to save. Julianne Moore is completely wasted in this movie. In fact, the whole cast is pretty much wasted besides Neeson, who still wasn’t that great. Lupita Nyong’o, who won a fucking Oscar, has maybe three or four speaking lines in the entire film, and the ones she has are lines that could have been given by anybody. It’s just really strange how misused the entire cast was.
Despite the cast, the first half of the movie was actually pretty damn engaging and creative. The use of the text messaging, while annoying to most, actually didn’t bother me that much. I was intrigued by how this person was killing people and still being able to text while doing so. Is it stupid? Hell yeah it is, but I was still sucked into figuring it out. The 180 that both the trailer and the synopsis spoils made for some interesting plot devices and I actually wanted to know how Liam Neeson was going to get out of it.
Then the final third started to happen. We start to learn who the real criminal is and I was lost. It was such a disappointment when the big shocker of a twist happens and all I could think was “Really?”. The action in the last third was completely bonkers and the whole problem with the cast came into full play because I didn’t care about anybody anymore. It ruined the whole film for me.
There were ultimately some good techniques used in the first half of the film. The end and the fact that none of the characters had any depth save for Liam Neeson and you really start to lose your audience. It ended up being an average film with a shit ending. I wouldn’t waste your time unless it’s on cable and you have nothing better to do.
2/5
www.thoughtsfromthebooth.com
@booththoughts
Earring72
Neeson is solid as usual but movie is too over the top, unbelievable and the end twist is VERY dissapointing and actually offensive.Some good action scenes can't save this movie.
DisneyStitch
At this point I think that Neeson is deliberately typecasting himself as a shoot em' up action star. Not his worst movie by any means, it manages to straddle the fine line between ridiculous action and perplexing whodunit rather decently. The 3rd act was rather weak compared to the rest of the movie but to be honest I can't think of any endings to this kind of action flick that wouldn't be cliché.AlonMiz
not bad at allRaj404
Keeps you wondering..... whose behind all the nuisance ... I bet you guys gonna have one hell of a ride ;)wilyhawk
Fun but forgetfulShowing items 1 – 15 of 28