As Oskar Schindler in “Schindler’s List,” Liam Neeson was nominated for an Oskar, er, Oscar. Now he’s Action-Man. Some people complain about this. “How could Liam take these lowly B-movie, action jobs? Why him?” The man is 6 feet 4 inches and a former amateur heavyweight boxer. Why not him?
Air Marshal Bill (Liam Neeson), in "Non-Stop." (Myles Aronowitz/Universal Pictures)
In most publications, the arts & entertainment sections are linked, so this review really should go in the entertainment section, because while Oskar was art—Air Marshal Bill is entertainment. But, “Non-Stop” being quite a good B-movie, we'll leave it in art. But it’s not art; it’s like going to Six Flags Great Adventure. Have fun; have popcorn.
Air Marshal Bill (Liam Neeson) and flight attendant Nancy (Michelle Dockery) in "Non-Stop." (Myles Aronowitz/Universal Pictures)
Scare in the Air
Bill Marks (Liam Neeson) is a former cop. Now he’s an alcoholic air marshal who hates flying. We know this because he drinks in the parking lot before the flight; the standard, come-from-behind, demon-battling hero.
Flight attendant Gwen (Lupita Nyong'o), in "Non-Stop." (Myles Aronowitz/Universal Pictures)
So we get up in the transatlantic air, and Air Marshal Bill (not to be confused with Jim Carrey’s Fire Marshal Bill) starts receiving extortion text messages over the airline’s secure network. The anonymous bad guy wants $150 million in a bank account or a passenger will be croaked every 20 minutes.
Right away it’s riveting: How’s the bad guy going to pull that off in this flying tin can without Bill saying, “I will find you, and I will kill you”? Because thanks to “Taken,” we know that’s Neeson’s action thing: He finds people and kills them. But bodies accumulate nevertheless. Whodunnit? Whoisit?
Jen Summers (Julianne Moore) helps unlock a hijacker's phone, unintentionally starting a 30-minute timer for a bomb, in "Non-Stop." (Myles Aronowitz/Universal Pictures)
Fabulous art-y actress Julianne Moore plays a character sitting next to Air Marshal Bill. Lupita Nyong’o from “12 Years a Slave” and Michelle Dockery from “Downton Abbey” play flight attendants. That’s three art-y actresses slumming in this entertainment circus, not to mention the pilot, played by Linus Roache, but Liam’s the scapegoat. It’s really an actor politics thing; if you’re willing to leave actor politics out of it, you can have lots of fun with this movie.
Where were we? Oh yes, Corey Stoll (from “House of Cards”) is an NYPD cop who plays with his phone too much.
Austin Reilly (Corey Stoll) is a cop on a plane, in "Non-Stop,'' a suspense-thriller played out at 40,000 feet. (Universal Pictures)
Playing With Phones
Lots of people on the plane are playing with their phones too much. And Air Marshall Bill is looking for people playing with phones too much. Bill is looking, and we the audience are trying to help him look. When “Non-stop” was in the theaters, in certain movie theaters, you were guaranteed to hear audience members trying to help Bill look: “Yo Bill—check the dude in the window seat on your left!”
Air Marshal Bill (Liam Neeson), in "Non-Stop." (Myles Aronowitz/Universal Pictures)
There was already so much texting in the world in 2014. There’s so much more now, but already then, it should have been titled “Non-Stop Texting.” It was conceivable in 2014 that when Neeson went back to art, he’d play Macbeth at the Brooklyn Academy of Music and text, “Is this a dagger I see before me?” and it would come up on a big smartphone-like screen so the audience could partake in the texting. That would have been very cutting edge in 2014. Not anymore. But come to think of it, instead of asking how Liam could take these lowly B-movie jobs, a better question would be: In 2014, weren’t phones on airplane mode, sans wifi? So how are all these people using wiki? Then again, maybe let’s not think on it too deeply.
It’s possible you could be too smart phone this movie. Smart for. If you can figure out where all the mysterious texting comes from, this movie’s not for you. But I’m not that smart (at least not right-brain smart); I couldn’t figure out any of it, but I felt exhilarating tension from start to finish and was on the edge of my seat the whole time.
Pilot David McMillan (Linus Roache) in "Non-Stop." (Myles Aronowitz/Universal Pictures)
The rest of the screening audience was apparently just as dumb, because when “Non-Stop” finally stopped at its ridiculous CGI deus ex machina finale—everyone cheered and clapped. That’s a sure sign of a satisfactorily cathartic release of tension. Like the way people cheer and clap when the roller coaster finally arrives back at the starting gate. And when planes land.
Jen Summers (Julianne Moore) uses oxygen mask when the side of the plane blows out, in "Non-Stop." (Myles Aronowitz/Universal Pictures)
Enjoy this guilt-free thrill ride; Neeson will probably, eventually, win another Oscar someday. Back in 2014, I warned people not to text during the movie in the theater, because I predicted that that would hasten our movie-going society to its inevitable conclusion: that America’s movie theater experience would be soon become a multitasking, attention-wrecking affair of viewing, popcorn scarfing, and non-stop texting. That’s exactly what’s happened. It’s non-stop. And like this movie, we have to figure out how to make it stop.
Mark Jackson is the chief film critic for The Epoch Times. In addition to the world’s number-one storytelling vehicle—film, he enjoys martial arts, weightlifting, Harley-Davidsons, vision questing, rock-climbing, qigong, oil painting, and human rights activism. Mark earned a bachelor's degree in philosophy from Williams College, followed by a classical theater training, and has 20 years’ experience as a New York professional actor, working in theater, commercials, and television daytime dramas. He recently narrated the Epoch Times audiobook “How the Specter of Communism is Ruling Our World,” which is available on iTunes and Audible. Mr. Jackson is a Rotten Tomatoes-approved film critic.
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