JAUME Collet-Saura’s film tries hard to get its technical bits correct in telling this rather fanciful thriller-action-airline message movie.
Message? Well, it doesn’t emerge until few opportunities remain to examine the tensions and mysteries of a plot about a London-bound airliner on board which undercover and armed US Air Marshall Bill (Liam Neeson) is seeking out the passenger who has threatened to kill somebody on the aircraft every 20 minutes if $US150 million hasn’t been paid into a numbered account.
The screenplay by John Richardson is his debut feature after a career editing TV. “Non-stop” has the texture of a telemovie, which would have been the better place to release it. You can’t win ‘em all.
Richardson keeps us in suspense for 90 per cent of the film, offering a selection of motives for the threat. The back stories of the key characters are unconvincing.
Julianne Moore, an actress capable of much more than merely the passenger sitting next to Bill, gets second billing right after Neeson. Her function in the plot is to become an unwilling helper in scrutinising the TV screens covering every seat in the cabin to identify anybody who looks suspicious!
And the message? It canvasses an in-flight situation arising from human frailty rather than evil. Blink twice and you’ll miss it. By then, ”Non-stop” will have so exhausted your credulity that you will yearn for the A330 aircraft to land, life-threatening wounds and all.
At Hoyts, Capitol 6, Dendy and Limelight
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