A clunky and silly thriller

Rating: Null/10 (2 March 2014)

I will admit that my hopes for this film were higher than normal. Being a fan of director Jaume Collet-Serra's work on "Unknown" and "Orphan," I was surprised to find out how terrible this film really is. Let me define terrible:
Frustrating. Ridiculous. IMPOSSIBLE.
The plot set up is really simple. Bill, a federal air marshal, boards a flight from New York to London. Three hours into the flight he starts to receive text messages from someone who purports to have hacked into the federal messaging database. This person claims to be on the plane and directs Bill to have $150 million deposited into a bank account or someone on the plane will die every 20 minutes. Off runs Liam trying to figure out who is messaging him, who he can trust, and is there a greater master plan afoot.
Sounds simple enough? Wrong. Collet-Serra is determined to throw everything including the kitchen sink at this movie where credulity is stretched past the breaking point. After the first death comes at the hands of Bill himself (solid plot twist, IMO), everyone else starts dying of anaphylactic shock. How? Well, the plot holes are big enough to fit an elephant into.
What is more frustrating is how obvious the plot holes are. For example, since when is the security of the pass code protected cockpit door so easily bypassed by poking a hole in the wall that is behind the bathroom paper towel dispenser? Yes really, I am not even joking.
Finally, when it is revealed whodunnit, you might as well just take your ball and go home, because the explanation, if you even want to call it an explanation, makes no sense.
**Read no further unless you, unlike me, desire to save yourself two hours of your life**
The writers seem to have lifted what I like to call the "Scream" complex for the film's conclusion. That's right, TWO people have conspired to do this. One is motivated by money, the other by madness. What madness?
9/11.
Yes, seriously. 9/11 did it.
After all of this planning and conniving (and putting us the audience through the misery of watching Liam and the cast run around the plane for two hours like a bunch of idiots who have been directed to look suspicious at all times while frequently making racist comments about each other), the crazy guy simply shoots his accomplice!
Really? After all of this planning together, you just shoot him?
Seriously?
After sitting through this mess of a film, with subplots involving drug smuggling, the token black guy, cop, and Muslim suspects, the shifty flight attendant that will remind you of far superior films (Flightplan) and dreadful but amusing (bad) ones (Turbulence), all I wanted was a hot shower and a hug- or the plane to crash at the 90 minute mark so this entire mess would just end already.
Even after all of this, Collet-Serra makes the cardinal sin of casting great actors and failing to use any of their talent. Julianne Moore, Linus Roache, Corey Stoll- even Lupita Nyong'o who is currently nominated for an Academy Award for "12 Years a Slave"- figuratively, if not actually, are all wasted. Liam Neeson is playing another angry growling character that made him famous in "Taken," which apparently has taken the place of what used to be a great talent that was only comparable to that of Daniel-Day Lewis.
Overly long and frustrating, "Non-stop" will leave major action fans and other mouth breathers drooling for more. But if you are like me and you are looking for logic, you won't find it here.
My suggestion is that you take up drinking like Moore does through most of this film if you are in fact tempted to spend $9.00 on seeing it. She must have realized halfway through production the direction this film was headed toward and asked Collet-Serra if drinking scotch was something her character would be motivated to do. I certainly would have.