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. (04/03/2014)

The duo of Jaume Collet-Serra and Liam Neeson works very well for me. This is a proper thriller that hits the gas from the start and hurtles forward at a furious and unstoppable pace. It has a few twists and turns, surprises, there are a quantum of decent ideas and the finale is both technically and visually breathtaking. Once again, my favorite actor did not disappoint. Pure thrilling fun! 80% (10/06/2014)

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*+. (02/01/2017)

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. (24/11/2020)

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. (08/03/2014)