Liam Neeson supplies ‘Non-stop’ action in airborne thriller
Even if Liam Neeson has admitted that he’s a little embarrassed playing an action hero at his age, he still does it well.
The actor, whose career was overhauled by the success of “Taken,” is perfectly credible as an air marshal aboard a targeted plane in the 2014 melodrama “Non-stop” (which Cinemax shows Wednesday, Jan. 25, and Saturday, Jan. 28). A good airplane thriller usually is fueled by one star as the hero – be it Wesley Snipes in “Passenger 57” or anyone who played a pilot in the “Airport” movies – and Neeson takes on that assignment quite ably.
As it happens, his character actually is afraid of flying, one of those quirks that immediately puts us on his side ... especially when he becomes the onboard point man for an extortionist who threatens that someone on the plane will die every 20 minutes unless a huge ransom is paid.
That opens up all kinds of questions, especially the one of who else on the plane is there to execute the killings. You need to suspend disbelief to a certain degree with “Non-stop,” but with the committed and convincing Neeson on hand, it isn’t hard to do that.
And what a supporting cast he’s been given, starting with Oscar winner Lupita Nyong’o (“12 Years a Slave”). She and Michelle Dockery (“Downton Abbey”) play flight attendants, and while they’ve done roles that have demanded much more of them than “Non-stop” ever comes close to doing, it’s still impressive to see them here.
The picture gets the basics of an airliner-set suspense saga right, showing off the plane (or the sleek sets that pass for one) and making sure we know what we need to about the passengers and crew members who become key players in the plot.
Julianne Moore and Corey Stoll (“Billions”) also are featured, but for all that acting pedigree, it’s clear immediately that Neeson is the one who’s in control here. He worked with the same director (Jaume Collet-serra) on “Unknown” several years earlier, and his strengths obviously are played to here.
Then again, you need a solid actor to give some new life to a genre that has played its hand with audiences many times. Neeson is very much that performer in the case of “Non-stop,” and if it’s not a white-knuckle ride all the way through, its skies are bumpy enough to give you a sufficient amount of vicarious excitement.