1.5 stars out of 5
I’ll admit it: I’m a sucker for plane movies. Snakes, Cillian Murphy and Rachel McAdams, whatever. So even though I haven’t been “Taken” in by the recent spate of Liam Neeson action flicks, the non-stop commercials for Non-Stop during the Olympics won me over.
Oh, what a sucker I am.
For quite a while—an hour or more—I was feeling OK about my ticket purchase. The movie seemed like a decent episode of 24, complete with frequent cuts to a ticking digital clock. There is genuine tension building as the camera scans the many possible suspects aboard this New York-to-London flight. Some passenger has broken through the encryption and is texting scary warnings to hang-dog air-marshall Neeson, who maybe shouldn’t have poured that whiskey into his paper coffee cup this morning. But which person is it?!?
But what begins as a taut cautionary tale about increased use of electronics on planes rapidly devolves into shameless 9/11 exploitation. And it keeps getting worse and worse. As discussion turns to the plane descending, I realized my rating for the movie was also plunging: 3.5 stars. Three! 2.5. Two…. At a real high-stress moment, Neeson delivers a ridiculous tell-don’t-show, heart-on-his-sleeve speech that had me laughing out loud. That’s when I realized: This was garbage.
Julianne Moore is around to class things up ever so slightly. Oscar winner Lupita N’yongo, as flight attendant #2, learns that it’s very difficult to pick a quality script every single time.
I was pleased that the movie avoided many opportunities for product placement: it’s a fictional airline, and what brand was Neeson’s seen-every-8-seconds phone, or his trusty bottle of booze? Only a lingering shot of a Patek Philippe watch disappointed me in this regard.
So, when this movie comes on cable or streaming video, I don’t recommend an extended layover.
I have to admit that the trailer didn’t look promising. I think Liam Neeson is such a fine actor, but since his wife’s death, he takes these really angry man, “action” roles, almost exclusively. I havn ‘t seen him smile in years. His characters always require him to be furious about something. I think Mr Neeson needs to do a stupid silly comedy or musical.
Ah, interesting take, Didi! Speaking of silly comedies, there was a trailer showing that he appears in the upcoming Seth MacFarlane western. Maybe that will help loosen him up.
I’m fucked up. I only had seething hatred when the commercials came on during the Olympics. Seattle was a nice place to be all those years, cause we watched the Canadian channel mostly.