Effective within its limitations

Rating: 6/10 (12 September 2014)

Those with a fear of flying might want to skip "Non-Stop," an airliner- in-jeopardy thriller that could have you taking trains and buses for quite some time to come.
In another of his increasingly frequent action-hero roles, Liam Neeson plays Bill Marks, a U.S. air marshal who discovers that someone aboard a flight from New York to London is threatening to kill a new passenger every 20 minutes until $150 million is deposited into an account that has been set up for the occasion. The twist is that the mystery culprit is making it look as if Marks is the actual extortionist and may even be making Marks carry out some of the killings for him.
"Non-Stop" works well enough within the limited confines of both the setting and the hostages-held-for-ransom genre of which it is a part. The whodunit plotting unravels at an appropriate pace, with a whole host of possible suspects for us to choose from, including fellow passengers Juliette Moore, Anson Mount ("Hell on Wheels") and Corey Stoll ("House of Cards" ), as well as Michelle Dockery ("Downton Abbey") and Lupita Nyong'o ("12 Years a Slave") as flight attendants who demonstrate grace and ingenuity under pressure.
The holes in the plot are probably large enough to fly a 747 through, but you really won't notice or care while you're strapped in for the ride. And to think, most airlines just provide movies as in-flight entertainment.