The premise alone is enough to provoke giddy squeals: Liam Neeson, channelling his badass character from the Taken franchise as US Air Marshall Bill Marks, finds himself trapped on a plane facing a series of text messages informing him to instruct the airline to transfer bundles of money to a secret account. It's up to Marks to figure out what the hell is going on before it's too late. Any movie that suspends its characters mid-flight and asks them to solve a crisis is instantly appealing even without Neeson, of course - with him, though, it's downright irresistible. Which is what makes Non-Stop so darn frustrating as both standard action fare and as a Neeson vehicle: it very nearly pulls the whole thing off before making a few critical mistakes at the end which threaten to overhaul the entire movie. Still, despite its flaws, Non-Stop is a blast to watch if you're the kind of person who can sit back and just enjoy the flight, ignoring plot holes and logical lapses. Neeson is on fine form, doing what he does best in this bizarre new era where it's okay for him to be a 61-year-old action star. Disappointing, then, but not entirely unbecoming.
Sam Hill is an ardent cinephile and has been writing about film professionally since 2008. He harbours a particular fondness for western and sci-fi movies.
