Non-Stop

You’ll keep telling yourself that if the screenwriters don’t mess it up, it’s going to be a perfect aero-thriller. Non-Stop has a fast pace, a charismatic lead actor, rising paranoia and escalating suspense. But the screenwriters do mess it up, and even though the suspense remains, the film gradually loses its seriousness and in the end leaves you smiling indulgently over another silly action flick with a 1990s mentality (as you could expect from a Joel Silver production). A piece of advice: if everyone on the plane thinks you’re a terrorist and the situation gets out of hand, just tell them that your daughter died of cancer. (03/04/2014)

B-movie shit that deals with its stupidity with an A-cast and ambitious emotional directing (after The Grey, Liam's pensive self-beautiful beginnings are probably becoming a tradition). The more refined the screenplay wants to be, it has to find that much more of a stupid and overcomplicated solution in a situation that makes no sense. That's because the screenwriters want you to knot your brain cells a little harder through a "big mystery". Were it not for the fact that the viewer can accept Neeson dramatically gargling of toilet disinfectant, this mannerist pretense of an intelligent thriller would be hardly bearable. This way, the stench pours out in the last ten minutes. But it is worth it. [55%] (07/02/2014)

Hitchcock with french fries. The first half works outstandingly, but gradually the lapses begin mounting up and by the finale it’s turned into a 90s air disaster movies the likes of Executive Decision or Air Force One. But the beginning is atmospheric, actors great, Liam Neeson continues to build his hard guy aura. Collet-Serra is a good filmmaker, but nobody wants to give him a decent screenplay, so for now he’s made friends with guns and Neeson. We can at least be pleased about that. (03/13/2014)

This film is an action thriller that turns into an absurd comedy after fifteen minutes that attacks your brain neurons with utterly stupid twists behind a hair-drawn storyline and clichéd stereotypes - airplane passengers, who of course include a Muslim doctor with a beard, a little girl flying behind her father, lovers trying to have sex on the plane, a computer expert able to program a message with a virus in eight minutes, and a woman who earns the full trust of the protagonist just by sitting next to him. Liam Neeson is traditionally the ultimate badass, but his opponent, an "invisible terrorist", would have to be a thousand times bigger badass to come up with such a sophisticated plan based on a perfect estimate of the protagonist's reactions, a perfect overview of the situation and an endless number of hellish coincidences. Thanks to its unrelenting pace, at least something is always happening in the film, and given to the dynamic camera and successful action sequences, the film is nice to look at. In the end, however, it's just single-use, popcorn action nonsense, offering quality filmmaking and over a hundred minutes of demented entertainment, but also a story so dysfunctional and illogical that it is almost interesting. (11/23/2020)

After a great introduction, I was full of hope and hoped that it wouldn't be spoiled... But it was. As time went on, the film became more and more futile, the various characters behaved more or less stupidly, and the repetitive "killer twenty minutes" started to look almost ridiculous as the filmmakers tried to cram in some action... By and large, Liam Neeson saved the day as the paranoid alcoholic, although he was given a much better opportunity in Unknown (not to mention the excellent The Grey). Yes, I was curious all the time with regard to "what, who, how and why", but sometimes something was just so evident that I couldn't miss it. Three and a half.__P.S. My favorite composer John Ottman unpleasantly surprised me with the bland music, which is a pity. (03/07/2014)