Non-Stop

The toss up between Jesus, and another Liam Neeson action movie

We start the movie by meeting our main character, Bill Marks (Liam Neeson). It is apparent (in the first five minutes) that Bill is an alcoholic due to some sort of tragedy in his life. What takes the director a little longer to divulge is that he is also a U.S. Air Marshal (we all know this from the trailer, but they felt the need to wait for the reveal until 15 to 20 minutes in). It seems like business as usual for the marshal until he gets a text message from an unknown number. After a couple of exchanges we figure out that the person texting him is now threatening that if certain demands are not met, they will kill a passenger every twenty minutes. Bill springs into action to save the flight and passengers before it is too late.

The story line in this was descent in some place, but standard in others. We have all seen some aspect of this movie somewhere before, from the characters to the terrorist's plans. I didn't really expect a whole lot of originality from the plot going in, and I was disappointed to figure out that this movie couldn't shake that belief. There are just so many things that this movie could have done better, like not revealing who the terrorists actually were. They could have also flushed the characters out a little more instead of everyone being so stereotypical. Yes, we know not all Muslims are terrorists. Yes, we know not all black people are automatically guilty. Yes, losing a person you care about would probably drive a man into a downward spiral. Yes, we know that any public servant from New York probably has some mixed feelings about planes and hijacking. All of these characters are so unbelievably boring that I really just didn't care who the terrorists were, because I figured that their reasons for doing this would be as generic as everything else in the movie. I will give the writers a small praise for making the big reveal at the end hard to call. I know if anyone else reading this actually saw the movie that they might have been able to call who the culprits were, but it did generally surprise me. It was also refreshing to see that Liam Neeson's character in this had many more faults than his character in other action movies (let's say "Taken," not that the movie was bad). He seemed less like a superhero, and more like an everyday guy that knew a few cool kung fu moves. The "Flight 93" sequence was also okay, if maybe a little bland and easy to see coming.

The acting in this was pretty standard all around, not in a bad way but in a "shrugging" way. Liam Neeson is par for the course, talking in a gravely voice, being an amazing actor. Julianne Moore plays the same old, "attractive older woman" model, this time with more of a tragedy to her character. She is great of course, but she has a lot of experience playing this character so I know she perfected it. If there were any real stands out here I would have to give it to Nate Parker and Corey Stoll. Both of these men were a bit out of the comfort zone we are used to from them, but handled themselves brilliantly.

As with any Liam Neeson action movie, the choreography was great. Plenty of bone breaking, eye popping, fist fights, so anyone desperately in need for some good fist fights will be perfectly happy here. Liam Neeson may play the bad ass old man in one too many films, but since all of his movies like to paint him as "the bad ass fist fighter," they do a great job of making me want to steer clear of him in a dark alley.

Final Verdict: Rent It I wish I could have gone into more detail on this one, but it really is so bland that I feel like I'd be quoting about five other critics on at least a dozen other movies. We've seen this before sums it up quite nicely, but it was a little better than okay. With the ending actually having an air of surprise, and Liam Neeson's character being a little more flushed out I'd say this would be worth a couple of dollars.