Non-Stop

You’ll keep telling yourself that if the screenwriters don’t mess it up, it’s going to be a perfect aero-thriller. Non-Stop has a fast pace, a charismatic lead actor, rising paranoia and escalating suspense. But the screenwriters do mess it up, and even though the suspense remains, the film gradually loses its seriousness and in the end leaves you smiling indulgently over another silly action flick with a 1990s mentality (as you could expect from a Joel Silver production). A piece of advice: if everyone on the plane thinks you’re a terrorist and the situation gets out of hand, just tell them that your daughter died of cancer. (04/03/2014)

Liam Neeson has found his niche as the character of an aging alcoholic desperately fighting for a good cause, and I can’t say I’m not a fan. This time it was not enough for four stars, though. The logical inconsistencies and melodramatic-clichéd speeches were too much for me. Having said that, I wasn’t bored, and the cast was great, so a 3*+. (01/01/2017)

B-movie shit that deals with its stupidity with an A-cast and ambitious emotional directing (after The Grey, Liam's pensive self-beautiful beginnings are probably becoming a tradition). The more refined the screenplay wants to be, it has to find that much more of a stupid and overcomplicated solution in a situation that makes no sense. That's because the screenwriters want you to knot your brain cells a little harder through a "big mystery". Were it not for the fact that the viewer can accept Neeson dramatically gargling of toilet disinfectant, this mannerist pretense of an intelligent thriller would be hardly bearable. This way, the stench pours out in the last ten minutes. But it is worth it. [55%] (02/07/2014)

A dull echo of the 1990s, whose cardiogram will drive you straight to the pharmacy for medication. Serra and Neeson would clearly love to create a new stable of action movies combined with a paranoid thriller, but while in Unknown they didn't take a screenwriter to Berlin, the airline to London forgot the captain straight away. Serra uses a lackluster flywheel that leaves Neeson's abilities in economy mode, as well as the entire pace of the narrative. It has a unique gift for moving forward headlong, but it lacks more substantial highlights that would give me a reason to see it again. One men's rendezvous in the bathroom really won't cut it. Actually, this is the first film in which Liam's position as an action titan seemed a bit out of place. There is no non-stop perennial here. (10/09/2014)

This film is an action thriller that turns into an absurd comedy after fifteen minutes that attacks your brain neurons with utterly stupid twists behind a hair-drawn storyline and clichéd stereotypes - airplane passengers, who of course include a Muslim doctor with a beard, a little girl flying behind her father, lovers trying to have sex on the plane, a computer expert able to program a message with a virus in eight minutes, and a woman who earns the full trust of the protagonist just by sitting next to him. Liam Neeson is traditionally the ultimate badass, but his opponent, an "invisible terrorist", would have to be a thousand times bigger badass to come up with such a sophisticated plan based on a perfect estimate of the protagonist's reactions, a perfect overview of the situation and an endless number of hellish coincidences. Thanks to its unrelenting pace, at least something is always happening in the film, and given to the dynamic camera and successful action sequences, the film is nice to look at. In the end, however, it's just single-use, popcorn action nonsense, offering quality filmmaking and over a hundred minutes of demented entertainment, but also a story so dysfunctional and illogical that it is almost interesting. (23/11/2020)