Non-Stop (film)
Non-Stop is a 2014 action-thriller film directed by Jaume Collet-Serra and starring Liam Neeson and Julianne Moore. It follows a Federal Air Marshal who must find a killer on an international flight after receiving texts saying someone on board will be executed every 20 minutes until financial demands are met. The film marks the second collaboration between Jaume Collet-Serra and Liam Neeson after Unknown.
An international co-production among France, the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada, it was the first film from Silver Pictures to be distributed by Universal Pictures since the end of Silver's deal with Warner Bros. Released in the United States on February 28, 2014, the film received generally mixed reviews from critics but was a box-office success, grossing $222 million against its $50 million budget.
Plot
Two U.S. Air Marshals, Jack Hammond and alcoholic Bill Marks, separately board a British Aqualantic Airlines Boeing 767 from New York City to London. Marks sits next to Jen Summers, who has switched seats so she can sit by the window. After takeoff, Marks receives a text message on his secure phone stating that someone will die every 20 minutes unless $150 million is transferred to a specified bank account. Marks breaks protocol and consults Hammond, who dismisses the threat. Marks, however, has Summers and flight attendant Nancy monitor the security cameras while texting the mysterious person to try to identify him.When Hammond is seen using his phone and suddenly goes to the rear toilet, Marks confronts him. Hammond unsuccessfully offers him some of the money and attacks. Marks secures Hammond in a choke-hold, and as Hammond raises a gun, Marks kills him exactly at the 20-minute mark. Marks finds cocaine in his briefcase, and later learns the perpetrator had blackmailed him and set him up for death. He alerts the TSA, but TSA agent Marenick informs him that the bank account is registered in his name and accuses Marks of being the perpetrator. Pilot David McMillan dies, apparently poisoned, at the 40-minute mark. Kyle, the co-pilot, convinces Marks that he is innocent.
Marks searches the resentful passengers. One of them uploads a video in which Marks accuses and manhandles schoolteacher Tom Bowen, convincing the rest of the world that Marks is the perpetrator. Meanwhile, Kyle is instructed by the TSA to divert to Iceland. Marks persuades programmer Zack White to write a computer virus to make the hijacker's phone ring. The phone rings in passenger Charles Wheeler's suit pocket, but he denies it is his. As Marks roughly questions him, Wheeler suddenly dies, foaming at the mouth, at the 60-minute mark.
In the first-class lavatory, Marks discovers a hole drilled into the wall that offers a clear shot to the pilot's seat, and discovers a dart in Wheeler's body. He asks a passenger who used the toilet recently if anybody used it after her; she replies that Summers did. Marks accuses Summers of being the hijacker. Summers gets upset, as she had stood by him. She manages to convince Marks of her innocence.
In the meantime, two RAF Typhoon fighter jets meet the plane, to escort it to a military base in Iceland. Jen and Marks manage to unlock the hijacker's phone, unintentionally starting a 30-minute timer for a bomb. Through words in a television news report claiming that Marks is hijacking their flight, Marks realizes that the bomb bypassed the security checks, and finds it in Hammond's cocaine briefcase. When some passengers attack Marks, Bowen stops them, believing that the bomb is the first priority. Marks convinces the others of his innocence, and has them move the bomb to the rear and surround it with luggage to direct the blast outward, while everybody moves to the front of the airplane. Marks tells Kyle to descend to 8,000 feet, as the current pressure differential will destroy the airplane if the bomb explodes, although the escorting jets refuse to let Kyle deviate from his course.
Marks, watching the earlier video, notices Bowen planting the phone on Wheeler, therefore implicating Bowen as the true hijacker and mastermind of the murders; White is Bowen's accomplice. Their goal was to frame Marks as a terrorist, thus ruining the reputation of the Air Marshals Service. Marks persuades White, who is more in it for the money, to try to disarm the bomb. Bowen, who wishes to die on the plane in a suicide mission, doesn't allow this and double-crosses White. Kyle suddenly descends the plane to 8,000 feet, giving Marks the opportunity to shoot and kill Bowen. White attacks Marks, still wanting to escape the aircraft, but the bomb detonates, killing him and blowing open the back of the plane. Despite the damage, Kyle manages to land the plane safely in Iceland.
Marks is praised as a hero. He and Summers make plans for the start of a possible future together.
Cast
Filming
Filming began on November 1, 2012, at York Studios in Maspeth, Queens, New York City, then continued at JFK Airport on December 7, 2012, and at Long Island MacArthur Airport. This was the inaugural movie filmed at York Studios.Soundtrack
The original motion picture soundtrack was composed by John Ottman. The record was released on April 3, 2014, via Varèse Sarabande label.Release
Box office
The film opened in 3,090 theaters in the United States and Canada, making $10 million on opening day. It went on to debut to $28.8 million, finishing first ahead of former box-office leader The Lego Movie, which also starred Neeson, and fellow new release Son of God. In its second weekend the film dropped 45%, grossing $15.8 million and finishing third.The film earned $92.1 million in North America and $130.6 million in other territories for a total gross of $222.8 million, against a budget of $50 million.
Critical response
On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 61% based on 222 reviews, with an average score of 5.8/10. The website's critical consensus reads: "While Liam Neeson is undoubtedly an asset, Non-Stop wastes its cast — not to mention its solid premise and tense setup—on a poorly conceived story that hinges on a thoroughly unbelievable final act." On another aggregation website, Metacritic, it holds a weighted average score of 56 out of 100, based on 41 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A−" on an A+ to F scale.Chris Nashawaty, writing for Entertainment Weekly, delivered a positive review, grading it "B", and observing: "At a certain point either you'll fasten your seat belt and go with Non-Stop's absurd, Looney Tunes logic or you won't. Against my better judgment, I went with it. After all, Neeson has shown time and again that he's the closest thing Hollywood has these days to a box office Rumpelstiltskin. He can spin cheese into gold." David Denby, for The New Yorker, was ambivalent on the film's overall scope, but praised Neeson, writing, "Neeson, who brings enormous conviction to these late-career action roles, moves his big body through confined spaces with so much power that you expect him to rip out the seats."
Richard Corliss, for Time, had a blasé opinion, stating that the film "...is no more or less than what it intends to be.." and posits the question: "Why demand logic of an action movie released in February, when audiences just want a nice, bumpy ride?" Susan Wloszczyna of RogerEbert.com wrote, "Liam Neeson is not going to be knocked off his perch as the elder statesman of B-movie tough guys any time soon...", and continued, "The rather ingenious if preposterous premise, one that only goes way off course in the heavy-handed third act...'Non-Stop' is so ridiculously entertaining in spite of its occasional lapses in real-world logic." Tom Shone, reviewing for The Guardian, maintained a similar tone in his review, saying of Neeson: "He's at his best striding up and down the aisles of the aircraft with that big, rolling gait of his, carving out great wads of air with his hands, barking orders, his face in Rodin-ish profile, his destiny, like Mitchum's, enlivened by a nobility far greater than the film he finds himself in – the true sign of a B-movie king"; and of Moore: "...Neeson enjoys a nice, relaxed rapport with Moore, whose looser, Keaton-esque side seems to come out when cast opposite noble hunks."