I see a lot of movies in theatre, but I rarely walk out of them thinking about how bad they were or about how I wish I hadn’t spent the money I paid to see them.
In the past year, only The Purge (one of the worst and most disappointing movies I have ever seen) and The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (Peter Jackson can legitimately go to hell for thinking it was reasonable to drag this one book out into three long – oh, so long – and boring movies that, when they are finished, will have robbed movie-goers of at least $36 over the course of three years) have achieved “That was an absolute waste of time and money” status.
Non-Stop, starring Liam Neeson, is not a great movie, and it is not without its flaws. But it’s not bad, and I certainly didn’t leave the theatre feeling cheated; it wasn’t a waste of time or money. Then again, due to a combination of coupons and SCENE points, my girlfriend and I paid only $3 – in total – to see the movie.
Neeson’s career is interesting, if not bizarre. Twenty years ago, he starred in Schindler’s List; he was nominated for Best Actor in a Leading Role at the 1994 Academy Awards for his portrayal of Oskar Schindler. Now, at the age of 61, he spends a lot of time kicking ass in movies like Taken, The Grey, and this one, Non-Stop. And he is good at it.
His character in Non-Stop, United States Federal Air Marshal Bill Marks, is troubled. His daughter died when she was 8, his wife divorced him, and he is an alcoholic. In fact, he drinks in his car before stepping on the trans-Atlantic flight to London that this movie centres around. Oh, he is also inordinately afraid of airplane takeoffs; during takeoff, he wraps some stupid ribbon that his daughter gave him around his fingers as a kind of safety mechanism. Marks has problems.
You might think that abusing alcohol as an Air Marshal isn’t that irresponsible… because really, what are the chances that – particularly in light of post-9/11 heightened security – an Air Marshal is really going to have to do anything on a flight other than enjoy their comfortable, first-class seat?
Well you’re wrong. And Non-Stop proves just how wrong you are. Early in the flight, Marks receives a text message via his secure Air Marshal network, telling him that unless $150 million is deposited into an account, people will begin dying; a new person will be killed every twenty minutes.
According to the Transportation Security Administration’s website, the “Federal Air Marshal Service promotes confidence in the nation’s civil aviation system through the effective deployment of Federal Air Marshals (FAMs) to detect, deter, and defeat hostile acts targeting U.S. air carriers, airports, passengers, and crews.”
Unfortunately for Marks, a series of events framing him as an Air Marshal-turned-hijacker of this seemingly doomed flight did very little to “promote confidence” amongst passengers.
First, as promised, someone is dead within twenty minutes – the other Air Marshal on the flight, Agent Hammond. The surprise is who did the killing: Air Marshal Marks, after an altercation with Hammond in the plane’s bathroom (to be fair, Hammonds was a cocaine-smuggling lunatic that deserved to die).
Then more people die, including the pilot. And everyone on board is pretty freaked out because Agent Marks is prowling around the plane like a starving tiger trying to figure out who is fucking with him and people begin demanding answers as to what the hell is going on. It doesn’t help that no one on the ground believes Marks when he tries to communicate with them about the threat he is facing: his supervisors believe that he is a terrorist (at least partially because they did some research and the account the person messaging Marks demanded money be put into is in Marks’ name) and news agencies are already panning him as such (which reinforces the passengers’ concerns, because they’re watching these broadcasts on their airplane TVs). Marks’ best moment is when he is able to temporarily placate the passengers by offering them free international travel for the next year (in fairness, international travel is damn expensive).
Undoubtedly, Non-Stop’s weakest moments came once its two villains had been revealed. The explanation for their actions was brief, shaky, nonsensical, and wholly unsatisfying: by framing Marks as an Air Marshal-turned-deranged terrorist, the real terrorists hoped to force an increase in security measures by exposing frailties in the current system.
What was their ultimate goal? To avoid future attacks in the same vein as the September 11th hijackings (one of the terrorists had lost a family member in those attacks), which they viewed as being the result of weak security in the United States. It was not made clear why this point needed to be made eleven years after 9/11 and result in the death of 150 innocent civilians, or even why they needed to frame an Air Marshal to make their point. These two, even more than Marks, have problems.
To the surprise of no one, Marks saves the day, kills the bad guys, and the plane is landed safely by the not-dead-co-pilot even after a bomb is exploded inside of the plane. No one else is hurt, and Marks is lauded as a hero.
Non-Stop isn’t overly original, and the acting isn’t great. But it is at times thrilling, and did legitimately keep me guessing throughout. Plus, it cost $3.