By Sandra Olmsted<\/b><\/p>\n
Director Jaume Collet-Serra and actor Liam Neeson, who\u00a0made Unknown in 2011, reteam in Non-Stop, a thrill ride of a popcorn film which borrow heavily from Master of Suspense Alfred Hitchcock. Most of the action takes place in the confined space of an airliner over the Atlantic, and Bill Marks (Neeson), a depressed, alcoholic US Air Marshal, must save the plane, the crew, and the passengers while they all believe he is hijacking the plane.<\/p>\n
While Hitchcock frequently used confined spaces moving through space, such as trains, there\u2019s no jumping off a plane, and the suspicion cast on Marks via text messages, phone calls, and uploaded videos presents Hitchcock\u2019s pursued pursuer in a new way.<\/p>\n
Strange plot twists, such as Marks killing Agent Marenick\u00a0(Shea Whigham), the other air marshal on the flight, right at the time that \u201cterrorist\u201d says that a passenger will die, also cast doubt on Marks\u2019 mental health. Could the terrorist who will kill a passenger every twenty minutes until $150 million is wired an account which happens to have Marks\u2019 name on it, be Marks? Or is someone framing Marks? As soon as one passenger is dead, the clock starts again while Marks struggles to convince the crew of his loyalty, keep the passengers in check, and ferret out the terrorists.<\/p>\n
Captain David McMillan (Linus Roache) thinks it\u2019s just a\u00a0hoax, but the text messages that Marks is receiving have to be coming from inside the plane, and the sender has hacked Marks\u2019 secure federal cell phone. Marks\u2019 finds an alley in Jen Summers (Julianne Moore), but even she is a suspect. Marks doesn\u2019t know who to trust, but eventually he must trust some of the passengers.<\/p>\n
Marks soon learns that ground control told McMillan to\u00a0relieve him of his duties, gun, and badge and that the dead Marenick had a briefcase full of cocaine. Then McMillian dies suddenly, mysteriously locked in the cockpit with the copilot Kyle Rice (Jason Butler Harner). If Rice is the terrorist, it accounts for why Marks can\u2019t root out the phone-using terrorist among the passengers.<\/p>\n
School teacher Tom Bowen (Scoot McNairy) accepted\u00a0$100 to strike up a conversation with Marks outside the airport, and Austin Reilly (Corey Stoll) defies Marks\u2019 authority on the plane. Although they are sympathetic to Marks\u2019 troubled history, flight attendants Nancy (Michelle Dockery) and Gwen (Oscar winner Lupita Nyong’o) could also easily be involved in the plot, and Dr. Fahim Nasir (Omar Metwally) fits the profile of a terrorist. Even Becca (Quinn McColgan), the de rigueur child traveling alone, looks suspicious at times because when Marks \u201creturned\u201d her Teddy bear as they boarded the plan, she didn\u2019t seem to recognize it. Lots of Hitchcockian MacGuffins!<\/p>\n
The performances, especially by Neeson and Moore, solidly add to the doubt cast on Marks and everyone else, and Collet-Serra\u2019s direction plays up the suspense and the trapped feeling of the passengers. However, the script by first-time screenwriters John W. Richardson, Chris Roach and Ryan Engle doesn\u2019t always make sense, but their plot twists keep the identity of the terrorist a mystery until nearly the last. The action starts immediately and stays riveting right to the end. Cinematographer Flavio Labiano captures the claustrophobic nature of the airplane even when the action is big, and John Ottman\u2019s music accentuates the tense pace of Jim May’s editing.<\/p>\n
Non-stop, a Universal Pictures release, is rated PG-13 for\u00a0intense sequences of action and violence, some language, sensuality and drug references, and it runs 106 minutes. Non-Stop in in theaters now. It\u2019s a great diversion!<\/p>\n
More of Olmsted\u2019s reviews are available at <www.thecinematicskinny.com>.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
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By Sandra Olmsted Director Jaume Collet-Serra and actor Liam Neeson, who\u00a0made Unknown in 2011, reteam in Non-Stop, a thrill ride of a popcorn film which borrow heavily from Master of Suspense Alfred Hitchcock. Most of the action takes place in the confined space of an airliner over the Atlantic, and Bill Marks (Neeson), a depressed, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"ocean_post_layout":"","ocean_both_sidebars_style":"","ocean_both_sidebars_content_width":0,"ocean_both_sidebars_sidebars_width":0,"ocean_sidebar":"","ocean_second_sidebar":"","ocean_disable_margins":"enable","ocean_add_body_class":"","ocean_shortcode_before_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_after_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_before_header":"","ocean_shortcode_after_header":"","ocean_has_shortcode":"","ocean_shortcode_after_title":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_bottom":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_bottom":"","ocean_display_top_bar":"default","ocean_display_header":"default","ocean_header_style":"","ocean_center_header_left_menu":"","ocean_custom_header_template":"","ocean_custom_logo":0,"ocean_custom_retina_logo":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_height":0,"ocean_header_custom_menu":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_family":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_subset":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_size":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_unit":"px","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_line_height":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_unit":"","ocean_menu_typo_spacing":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_unit":"","ocean_menu_link_color":"","ocean_menu_link_color_hover":"","ocean_menu_link_color_active":"","ocean_menu_link_background":"","ocean_menu_link_hover_background":"","ocean_menu_link_active_background":"","ocean_menu_social_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_links_color":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_color":"","ocean_disable_title":"default","ocean_disable_heading":"default","ocean_post_title":"","ocean_post_subheading":"","ocean_post_title_style":"","ocean_post_title_background_color":"","ocean_post_title_background":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_image_position":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_attachment":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_repeat":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_size":"","ocean_post_title_height":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay":0.5,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay_color":"","ocean_disable_breadcrumbs":"default","ocean_breadcrumbs_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_separator_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_hover_color":"","ocean_display_footer_widgets":"default","ocean_display_footer_bottom":"default","ocean_custom_footer_template":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"ocean_post_oembed":"","ocean_post_self_hosted_media":"","ocean_post_video_embed":"","ocean_link_format":"","ocean_link_format_target":"self","ocean_quote_format":"","ocean_quote_format_link":"post","ocean_gallery_link_images":"on","ocean_gallery_id":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12153","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-movie-reviews","entry"],"yoast_head":"\n