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)

It’s a pity they screwed up the third act. Up until Neeson’s speech to the nervous passengers, this is a solidly tense thriller and I would have forgiven it anything, but after that scene the decent fun falls apart in such way that it becomes annoying. By the end everything is bad. (05/25/2014)

A dull echo of the 1990s, whose cardiogram will drive you straight to the pharmacy for medication. Serra and Neeson would clearly love to create a new stable of action movies combined with a paranoid thriller, but while in Unknown they didn't take a screenwriter to Berlin, the airline to London forgot the captain straight away. Serra uses a lackluster flywheel that leaves Neeson's abilities in economy mode, as well as the entire pace of the narrative. It has a unique gift for moving forward headlong, but it lacks more substantial highlights that would give me a reason to see it again. One men's rendezvous in the bathroom really won't cut it. Actually, this is the first film in which Liam's position as an action titan seemed a bit out of place. There is no non-stop perennial here. (09/10/2014)

I see that Liam Neeson can get himself mixed up in some great stories. After the movies Taken and Unknown, he completes his distinctive thriller trilogy with this very film. I just hope it’s not the end of the thriller genre for him, because I think he has found himself in those movies. And it doesn’t really matter that in this movie, he plays an aged alcoholic who shakes like a leaf at the thought of a stressful situation. Anyway, I can’t just talk about him all the time. The director has a great deal of credit for the high quality of this movie. If I decided to view this thriller as a crime investigation story, I’d think that everybody on the board of that plane was the killer. The camera shots of those people, their looks and even their behavior was exactly what I needed. Because I wasn’t sure about absolutely anything. And that’s why I really enjoyed this dynamic and tense movie. (06/29/2014)

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)

Ninety minutes of pure "Hitchcock-like" genre enthusiasm. Why then only three stars? Because, after all, it has not only ninety minutes, but also a final fifteen minutes that leaves even an unsound mind standing still; let alone a sound one. From the speech on, everything is wrong. Everything. (05/25/2014)

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)

A solid average that’s nothing to write home about. There’s an undeniable partial originality in terms of visuals (the text messages in the background, etc.) and in terms of the progression of the plot, when Liam Neeson, as a retired Marshall, falls into solid paranoia in the first act, but that's about it for anything truly interesting. And no, don't expect any action this time, this is not Taken. The only truly interesting fight is the opening one in the toilet, and it doesn’t get any better than that. On the other hand, what is not missing is the traditionally overblown ending and the digital landing. (03/17/2014)

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)

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)

Liam Neeson has found his niche as the character of an aging alcoholic desperately fighting for a good cause, and I can’t say I’m not a fan. This time it was not enough for four stars, though. The logical inconsistencies and melodramatic-clichéd speeches were too much for me. Having said that, I wasn’t bored, and the cast was great, so a 3*+. (01/01/2017)

Excellent thriller, which gradually runs out of ideas and it is clear that the ending will somehow be forced. Liam Neeson is great once again as an action hero, except for the strong emotional speech that was dictated to him by the screenwriters. Otherwise, I must say that I enjoyed the film because of its palpable tension. It doesn't last the whole time, but you will be rooting for Liam. (07/31/2014)