Movie review: Non-Stop - plane pleasure

Power-packed performances and a gripping plot rescue a rocky flight.

There have been a number of airplane hijacking movies with an all-too-familiar plot, but Non-Stop, directed by Jaume Collet-Serra, takes it to a whole new height, with some bumps of course. With constant twists and turns in the plot, the thriller manages to keep the viewer captivated till the end.

Liam Neeson, the Irish actor who starred in Taken, Schindler’s List and Star Wars: Episode I-The Phantom Menace, plays the lead role of alcoholic US Air Marshal, Bill Marks. He is a tainted ex-police officer on the New York-to-London flight who receives a series of threatening and anonymous text messages stating that every 20 minutes a person will be killed on the flight until $150 million are transferred into a specified account. This switches on Neeson’s panic mode as he begins to suspect almost everyone on the flight.

Instead of finding the troublemaker, unfortunately, Neeson lands in hot water, causing people to turn a suspicious eye towards him. Julianne Moore playing Jen Summers, a talkative passenger who recently underwent heart surgery, is another name on the list of suspects. Having starred in Nine Months and The Lost World: Jurassic Park, the actress is a maestro at turning ordinary characters into memorable performances. Even the pilot, a cop and a Muslim doctor (typical Hollywood plot cliché) suffer from a similar fate of distrust and suspicion but all ends well when the real culprits surface.

Apart from the mind games, the movie ends on a series of high notes ensured by veteran action producer, Joel Silver such as the fight in a confined plane toilet. Neeson delivers some really hard punches dispelling the notion that age is a determining factor when it comes to playing an action lead. Along with its fine moments, the movie also suffers a few blows when it comes to believability — a single person hijacking an entire aircraft is, thankfully, far from possible.

Despite the few setbacks, Non-Stop has done exceptionally well at the box office, securing an estimated $85 million, according to boxoffice.com. While the movie falls prey to seen-before action and a disappointing ending, the solid performances and well-executed plot make it a worthwhile watch.

Movies that fly high in the ‘hijack’ genre

Die Hard 2 (1990)



Bruce Willis steers the Die Hard series to another compelling success by taking on a team of terrorists who seize control of an entire airport to force the release of a drug lord. With no runway lights and diminishing fuel, Willis must act fast for planes to land safely.

Executive Decision (1996)



Kurt Russel plays an intelligence expert who is on a mission to stop the hijacked 747, bound from Athens, to enter US airspace. Before the terrorists can release their leader imprisoned in the US, Russel diffuses their plans midair in this well-executed thriller.

Air Force One (1997)



When the President’s official plane is hijacked, only the most capable can be trusted to lead the rescue operation. Harrison Ford is the man for the job as he rescues the hostages including the President’s wife and daughter from the grip of terrorists who are spurred to rebel by the President’s ‘zero-tolerance’ policy on terrorism.

Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

Saqib Nasir is a graduate from the University of Warwick and is currently working as a subeditor at The Express Tribune.

Published in The Express Tribune, Sunday Magazine, April 20^th, 2014.