Non-Stop
Published 2014-07-08
Film info
- Title Non-Stop
- Director Jaume Collet-Serra
- Year 2014
- Run time 1hr 46m
- Genres Thriller, Action, Mystery
- Tagline The hijacking was just the beginning
- Cast Liam Neeson
Bill Marks is a burned-out veteran of the Air Marshals service. He views the assignment not as a life-saving duty, but as a desk job in the sky. However, today's flight will be no routine trip. Shortly into the transatlantic journey from New York to London, he receives a series of mysterious text messages ordering him to have the government transfer $150 million into a secret account or a passenger will die every 20 minutes.
Live blog
| Time | Comment |
|---|---|
| 0:50 | Is he going to have specialist skills in this one? |
| 5:06 | He appears to be having that thing where, as soon as you know you should be suspecting people, everyone is acting suspiciously. |
| 6:26 | Henry the Paddington Bear?? |
| 14:24 | Gotta be a concern for the TSA if they show how to get round the "do not smoke" signs in the bathroom. |
| 17:11 | I bet people hate these sequences with all the text messages but I kinda love it. |
| 17:55 | It takes some good text placement and shot framing to make it work properly. |
| 18:48 | I think it's the new stewardess. Mr C has his money on House of Cards baldy. |
| 20:46 | Advice for life: "Don't panic the cockpit." |
| 30:20 | Woah, that was the twenty minutes. Freaky. |
| 37:21 | He's said "you know me" to the stewardess and the captain. How well do these people actually know each other? |
| 48:30 | They'd run out of fuel before running out of passengers, surely? |
| 53:12 | This is a pretty excellent whodunit, I must say. |
| 56:47 | Free international travel for 150 passengers would be mega costly. |
| 1:07:22 | I was keen on looking out the window for a flight but the aisle is worth more. |
| 1:15:10 | Loving whoever it is that is just filming everything. Mobiles for the win! |
| 1:20:58 | "It's never been tried before." That doesn't fill you with confidence. |
| 1:25:27 | Changed my mind on the whole mobile filming thing. |
| 1:27:32 | So... we were both wrong. |
| 1:38:37 | Yea! I was sure he got shot for good. |
| 1:39:49 | Don't they know the Speed thing? Romances started under extreme circumstances don't last. |
Thoughts
In the mood for something mindless, Non Stop seemed like the perfect choice. Widely known as "Taken on a plane" we figured it would just be another version of Neeson and his skills taking down the bad guys.
And it was, but it wasn't just another rehashing of Taken. I actually thought it was really good. There was a moment midway through where I realised it wasn't going to be Oscar material, and film snobs would hate it, but then I put that out of my mind and got into it.
At its core, there's a really fun murder mystery style whodunit to be worked out. As you can see above, Mr C and I both had a good go at guessing, both changed our minds on several occasions and still were nowhere near the truth.
There's also some brownie points to be had for the film having a pretty solid script with no major plot holes. It isn't often you can say that these days. We didn't spend very long ridiculing the plot, only the concept of airport security. All in all, a very enjoyable ninety minutes!
Rating: 4 / 5