In the late-age, reinvention as an action hero, Neeson starts up from where he had left in Serra’s last film the ‘Unknown’.
Here he is a federal air marshal aboard an aircraft when a passenger threatens to kill everyone on board one by one until and unless $150 million is wired into his/her safe account. The premise is interesting, and Non-Stop makes some effort to stretch the tension and to establish Bill (Neeson) as an unstable character – till invariably the invariables catch up.
There is only so much action one can pack inside an aircraft – even with made-for-film larger aisles – there are only so many people Bill can haul cruelly for investigating, and there are only so many angles which can be explored over phone calls or text messages. The 150 people onboard and their back stories could make a better film but Non-Stop doesn’t look like it is interested, nor even implies this from its name.
Neeson’s weather-beaten, scowling grimace is complimented by an irritatingly calm and composed Moore, a solemn Muslim doctor who is called upon to redeem his faith, an airhostess who is here, there everywhere – unlike the non-existent Lupita (12 Years a Slave) Nyong’o – and a tangent that embarrassingly literally evokes the air marshal’s dead daughter.
And just when we think that the saving grace is that the “terrorist” only wants money, the film puts up more million dollar questions with answer which no one has.
