Extra Credit Movie Review

A couple of months ago I saw the movie Non-Stop. It was a pretty good movie. The movie didn’t have the strongest story or plot but it was super easy to follow. The action mystery motion picture released by Silver Pictures and Studio Canal is about a Federal Air Marshal that is being framed for high jacking a flight from New York to London. This was a movie that I wanted to watch because it had Liam Neeson in it and I just love all his action movies. For some reason this movie reminded me of his movie Taken and I just had to watch it. This movie was definitely not one of Liam Neeson’s better movies as the plot was weak and some of the scenes seemed far fetched. Regardless this movie is for any action lover and should be seen by ages thirteen and up since it is rated PG-13.
The movie starts out with a man named Bill Marks, played by Liam Neeson, who is a U.S. Federal Air Marshal. He is a man who lost his daughter to cancer and was fired from the police. The whole movie takes place on a non-stop, one way flight from New York to London. While the plane is halfway across the Atlantic, Bill Marks receives a text messages on his U.S Marshal secure phone line that said, someone on the plane will die every twenty minutes unless one-hundred and fifty million dollars is transferred into a specific offshore bank account. At that time Marks did not know he was being set up or framed and later on you find out that the offshore account is in Marks name. Marks talks with Jack Hammond, played by Anson Mount, the other Federal Air Marshal on the flight about the text he has received. Hammond told Marks to let is go, “it’s probably some kind of cruel joke”. Later on, Hammond is revealed to be smuggling cocaine on the plane in a briefcase, following an altercation Marks ends up killing Hammond in a lavatory. (This was a very cool right scene and closely resembled the Taken 1 and 2 fight scenes.) This occurs exactly at the 20 minute mark, resulting in the first death. As Marks attempts to stall for time with the anonymous texter, he works with a flight attendant named Nancy played by Michelle Dockery and a passenger named Jen Summers who is played by Julianne Moore. The captain dies of poisoning all of a sudden when the twenty minutes was up again. The public becomes convinced that Marks is hijacking the plane, as the bank account is in his name. The Co-pilot has been instructed by the TSA to ignore Marks and land at the closest destination possible. Marks finds out that someone shot a poison dart at the captain; though a hole in the lavatory and the latest passenger that died was killed by a dart as well. Marks finds a bomb hidden in the cocaine that Hammond smuggled on and is unable to defuse it. He tells the passengers that the plane must get to eight thousand feet to equalize air pressure when the bomb explodes. Also by stacking all the luggage on the bomb is might condense the blast. Marks finds out that a man named Tom Bowen, played by Scoot McNairy was behind everything. Marks and Bowen fight, and then Bowen tells Marks that his father was killed in the 9/11 attack. Bowen was angered by the lack of security at U.S. airports after 9/11, and hoped that framing Marks as a terrorist will lead to increased security. Bowen said that he was doing all of it because he cared for his country and planned to make an example. Marks eventually shoots Bowen in the head. The co-pilot performs a miracle and manages to land the air plane at an airport after the bomb exploded leaving a giant hole in the side of the plane. There is a little girl that almost flies out of the plane but protagonist Marks saves the girl and somehow there were no casualties. Marks becomes a hero and then the movie ends.

I definitely thought the ending of the movie was a little unrealistic since the co-pilot drops straight down from thirty thousand feet all the way to eight thousand feet in a matter of seconds and somehow manages to land a plane with a hole in it. I was especially surprised that there weren’t any other deaths because of the crash-landing or the explosive of the bomb.
Non-stop was premiered in the United States on February 28, 2014, and is scheduled to be released on DVD and Blu-ray June 10, 2014. When the film opened in theaters in the United States it grossed $10 million on its opening day and was ranked #1 at the end of weekend with $28.9 million. As of May 13, 2014, the film earned $91,104,080 in the United States, and in other markets it took in an additional $100,800,000 for a total of $191,904,080 worldwide. I would say the movie was a success since there budget was only $50 million (IMDb).
I would say that anyone who likes a good action, thriller, mystery should watch Non-Stop. This movie is for any thirteen and up who likes watching Liam Neeson being a total badass. I do have to warn everyone that if you were expecting a movie like Taken 1 or Taken 2 you are going to be fairly disappointed. This movie has much less fighting and the storyline is somewhat weak. If you want more information about Non-stop and other summaries of the movie, go to Internet Movie Database, or IMDb. This site has everything about the movie from the producers to box office earnings.