“Non-Stop” (Trailer) is a Liam Neeson action movie where he uses his wit and tactical efficiency to solve a crisis.

I am not promising from this review of “Non-Stop”. I just promise to make zero “Taken” jokes even if the vague outline that I just provided sounds like it could easily be used for that movie. It is becoming old-hat to make “Taken” jokes just because a movie stars Neeson, so I will let Zach Braff take care of that for me.

Bill Marks (Neeson) is a Federal Air Marshal. He is a quiet man who has had some problems in his life recently, including alcoholism. But that is okay, it is not like he ever has to do anything on his job.

Just kidding. On a flight to London someone wants to hijack the plane. They have hacked into the local network and are sending text messages to Bill, threatening that someone will die every twenty minutes on the plane unless they get $150 million sent to a bank account. Even more troubling news is that bank account is in Bill’s name, so the TSA and other governmental agencies have assumed that Bill has gone rogue and is hijacking the plane until he gets paid.

Bill will have to use the people he can trust on the plane, Nancy (Michelle Dockerty), a flight attendant who he has worked with before, Jack Hammond (Anson Mount), an off duty Air Marshal also on the flight, and of course Jen Summers (Julianne Moore), the woman he just met who was sitting next to him in first class, to help rescue the flight. 

So, who is the terrorist?! Well here is a list of actors also on the plane to pick from, assuming it actually is not an inside job and is not one of the people already listed in the review: Corey Stoll, Nate Parker, Scoot McNairy, Lupita Nyong’o, Omar Metwally, Corey Hawkins and Frank Deal.

I know I might have made the plot of “Non-Stop” seem cliche/not exciting, but it turned out to be the opposite of that. First off, it was not a mindless action movie. The only big action sequence happens near the end, which you could tell from the trailers. Everything else is based on suspense and tiny clues along the way.

Outside of the first 8 or so minutes, I found myself watching “Non-Stop” on the edge of my seat. The parts of the movie before boarding the plane were a bit slow, but that can be expected in a movie like this.

Was it believable? No, not really. There are a lot of coincidences and lucky breaks that make the entire evil mastermind plan work. Kind of annoying, but I can get over it.

Somehow, despite the coincidences and questionable plot, I was really entertained by this movie. It was not obvious who the bad guy was – there were plenty of red herrings thrown our way throughout the film. In fact, I think knowing “who did it” would not even ruin future viewings for me, which is a rarity for these types of movies.

Neeson might have actually been the perfect pick for this role as well. He has that aged scruffiness, perfect for a guy who has “seen some stuff” in his days.

Check out “Non-Stop,” which ended up being (surprisingly) one of the better movies for the month of February.

4/5