''Non-Stop'' is a 2014 mystery

action thriller film The action film is a film genre that predominantly features chase sequences, fights, shootouts, explosions, and stunt work. The specifics of what constitutes an action film has been in scholarly debate since the 1980s. While some scholars such as D ...

directed by

Jaume Collet-Serra Jaume Collet-Serra (; born 23 March 1974) is a Spanish-American film director and producer. He directed the horror films ''House of Wax (2005 film), House of Wax'' (2005), ''Orphan (2009 film), Orphan'' (2009), and ''The Shallows (film), The Sh ...

, co-produced by

Joel Silver Joel Silver (born July 14, 1952) is an American film producer. Life and career Silver was born and raised in South Orange, New Jersey, the son of a writer and a public relations executive. His family is Jewish. He attended Columbia High School ...

, and starring

Liam Neeson William John Neeson (born 7 June 1952) is an actor from Northern Ireland. He has received List of awards and nominations received by Liam Neeson, several accolades, including nominations for an Academy Award, a British Academy Film Award, BAFT ...

and

Julianne Moore Julie Anne Smith (born December 3, 1960), known professionally as Julianne Moore, is an American actress and children's author. Prolific in film since the early 1990s, she is known for her portrayals of emotionally troubled women in independent ...

. It follows an alcoholic ex-

NYPD The City of New York Police Department, also referred to as New York City Police Department (NYPD), is the primary law enforcement agency within New York City. Established on May 23, 1845, the NYPD is the largest, and one of the oldest, munic ...

officer turned Federal Air Marshal who must find the killer on an international flight from New York to London after receiving texts saying someone on board will die every 20 minutes until financial demands are met. The film marks the second collaboration between Collet-Serra and Neeson after ''

Unknown Unknown or The Unknown may refer to: Film and television Film * The Unknown (1915 comedy film), ''The Unknown'' (1915 comedy film), Australian silent film * The Unknown (1915 drama film), ''The Unknown'' (1915 drama film), American silent drama ...

'' (2011). An international co-production among France, the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada, it was the first and only film from

Silver Pictures Silver Pictures is an American film production company founded by Cinema of the United States, Hollywood producer Joel Silver in 1980. For many years, during the mid-1980s, the production company was based at 20th Century-Fox, but the productio ...

to be distributed by

Universal Pictures Universal City Studios LLC, doing business as Universal Pictures (also known as Universal Studios or simply Universal), is an American filmmaking, film production and film distribution, distribution company headquartered at the 10 Universal Ci ...

since the end of Silver's deal with

Warner Bros. Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. (WBEI), commonly known as Warner Bros. (WB), is an American filmed entertainment studio headquartered at the Warner Bros. Studios complex in Burbank, California and the main namesake subsidiary of Warner Bro ...

Released in the United States on February 28, 2014, the film received generally mixed reviews from critics but was a box office success, grossing $222 million worldwide.

Plot

Bill Marks is a U.S. Air Marshal and ex-

officer who boards a

direct Direct may refer to: Mathematics * Directed set, in order theory * Direct limit of (pre), sheaves * Direct sum of modules, a construction in abstract algebra which combines several vector spaces Computing * Direct access (disambiguation), ...

transatlantic Transatlantic, Trans-Atlantic or TransAtlantic may refer to: Film * Transatlantic Pictures, a film production company from 1948 to 1950 * Transatlantic Enterprises, an American production company in the late 1970s * ''Transatlantic'' (1931 film) ...

flight from

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

. Marks sits next to Jen Summers in business class, who has switched seats so that she can sit by the window. After takeoff, Marks receives a text message on his secure phone stating that someone will die every 20 minutes unless $150 million is transferred to a specified bank account. Marks breaks protocol and consults the flight's other air marshal Jack Hammond, who dismisses the threat. Marks instructs Summers and flight attendant Nancy to monitor the security cameras while texting the mysterious person in order to identify him. When Marks catches Hammond on his phone nearing the 20-minute mark, he confronts him again. Hammond tries to bribe Marks which confirms his suspicions and attacks, forcing Marks to kill him exactly at the 20-minute mark. Marks finds cocaine in his briefcase and learns the perpetrator had blackmailed him and set him up for death. Marks alerts the TSA, but TSA Agent Marenick informs Marks that the bank account is registered in his name and accuses him of being the perpetrator. Captain David McMillan is apparently poisoned, but co-pilot First Officer Kyle Rice convinces Marks that he is innocent. Marks searches the resentful passengers, where one of them uploads a video in which Marks accuses and manhandles schoolteacher Tom Bowen, convincing the rest of the world that Marks is the perpetrator. Rice is instructed by the TSA to divert to

Iceland Iceland is a Nordic countries, Nordic island country between the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic and Arctic Oceans, on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge between North America and Europe. It is culturally and politically linked with Europe and is the regi ...

. Marks persuades programmer Zack White to write a computer virus to make the hijacker's phone ring. The phone rings in passenger Charles Wheeler's suit pocket, but he denies it is his. As Marks roughly questions him, Wheeler suddenly dies, foaming at the mouth. In the first-class lavatory, Marks discovers a hole drilled into the wall that offers a clear shot to the pilot's seat and discovers a dart in Wheeler's body. A passenger tells him that Summers entered the lavatory recently. Marks accuses Summers of being the hijacker. Summers becomes upset as she had stood by him and convinces him of her innocence. Two RAF

Typhoon A typhoon is a tropical cyclone that develops between 180° and 100°E in the Northern Hemisphere and which produces sustained hurricane-force winds of at least . This region is referred to as the Northwestern Pacific Basin, accounting for a ...

fighter jets meet the plane to escort it to a military base in Iceland. Summers and Marks unlock the hijacker's phone, which unintentionally starts a 30-minute timer for a bomb. Through words in a television news report claiming that Marks is hijacking their flight, Marks realizes that the bomb bypassed the security checks, and finds it in Hammond's cocaine briefcase. When some passengers attack Marks, Bowen stops them, believing that the bomb is the priority. Marks convinces the others of his innocence and has them move the bomb to the rear and surround it with luggage to direct the blast outward, while everybody moves upfront. Marks urges Rice to follow explosive protocol and descend from 30,000 to 8,000 feet as the current pressure differential will destroy the airplane if the bomb explodes, although the escorting jets refuse to let Rice deviate from his course. Watching the earlier video, Marks notices Bowen planting the phone on Wheeler, implicating Bowen as the mastermind of the murders. White reveals himself as Bowen's accomplice. Bowen reveals that his father was killed in the

September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks, also known as 9/11, were four coordinated Islamist terrorist suicide attacks by al-Qaeda against the United States in 2001. Nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercial airliners, crashing the first two into ...

and blames the U.S. for not improving their security enough to prevent future similar attacks. Their goal was to frame Marks as a terrorist, thus ruining the reputation of the Air Marshals Service to force the U.S. to create stronger security laws. Marks persuades White (who was in it for the money) to try to disarm the bomb. Bowen, who wishes to die on the plane in a suicide mission, double-crosses White and shoots him. Rice rapidly descends the aircraft to 8,000 feet, giving Marks the opportunity to kill Bowen. White regains consciousness and attacks Marks, but the bomb detonates, killing him and blowing open the back of the plane. Despite the damage, Rice barely lands the plane in Iceland with no additional loss of life. Marks is praised as a hero and exonerated, where it is also implied that he and Summers might begin a relationship.

Cast

Production

Filming

Filming began on November 1, 2012, at York Studios in

Maspeth, Queens Maspeth is a residential and commercial community in the Borough (New York City), borough of Queens in New York City. It was founded in the early 17th century by Dutch and English settlers. Neighborhoods sharing borders with Maspeth are Woodside ...

, then continued at JFK Airport on December 7, 2012, and at Long Island MacArthur Airport. This was the inaugural movie filmed at York Studios.

Music

The original motion picture soundtrack was composed by John Ottman. The record was released on April 3, 2014, via

Varèse Sarabande Varèse Sarabande is an American record label, owned by Concord Music Group and distributed by Universal Music Group, which specializes in film scores and cast recording, original cast recordings. It aims to reissue rare or unavailable albums, as ...

label.

Release

Home media

''Non-Stop'' was released on

Blu-ray Disc Blu-ray (Blu-ray Disc or BD) is a Digital media, digital optical disc data storage format designed to supersede the DVD format. It was invented and developed in 2005 and released worldwide on June 20, 2006, capable of storing several hours of ...

and

DVD The DVD (common abbreviation for digital video disc or digital versatile disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any ki ...

on June 10, 2014.

Reception

Box office

The film opened in 3,090 theaters in the United States and Canada, making $10 million on opening day. It went on to debut to $28.8 million, finishing first ahead of former box-office leader ''

The Lego Movie ''The Lego Movie'' is a 2014 animated adventure comedy film written and directed by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller. Based on the Lego line of construction toys, the film stars the voices of Chris Pratt, Will Ferrell, Elizabeth Banks, Will ...

'', which also starred Neeson, and fellow new release ''

Son of God Historically, many rulers have assumed titles such as the son of God, the son of a god or the son of heaven. The term "Son of God" is used in the Hebrew Bible as another way to refer to humans who have a special relationship with God. In Exo ...

''. In its second weekend the film dropped 45%, grossing $15.8 million and finishing third. The film earned $92.1 million in North America and $130.6 million in other territories for a total gross of $222.8 million, against a budget of $50 million.

Critical response

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review aggregator, review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee ...

the film holds an approval rating of 62% based on 228 reviews, with an average rating of 5.80/10. The website's critical consensus reads: "While Liam Neeson is undoubtedly an asset, ''Non-Stop'' wastes its cast — not to mention its solid premise and tense setup—on a poorly conceived story that hinges on a thoroughly unbelievable final act."

Metacritic Metacritic is an American website that aggregates reviews of films, television shows, music albums, video games, and formerly books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created ...

assigned the film a weighted average score of 56 out of 100, based on 41 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Audiences polled by

CinemaScore CinemaScore is an American market research firm based in Las Vegas. It surveys film audiences to rate their viewing experiences with letter grades, reports the results, and forecasts box office receipts from the data. Background Ed Mintz, who ...

gave the film an average grade of "A−" on an A+ to F scale. Chris Nashawaty gave a positive review in ''

Entertainment Weekly ''Entertainment Weekly'' (sometimes abbreviated as ''EW'') is an American online magazine, digital-only entertainment magazine based in New York City, published by Dotdash Meredith, that covers film, television, music, Broadway theatre, books, ...

''. "At a certain point either you'll fasten your seat belt and go with ''Non-Stops absurd, Looney Tunes logic or you won't. Against my better judgment, I went with it. After all, Neeson has shown time and again that he's the closest thing Hollywood has these days to a box office Rumpelstiltskin. He can spin cheese into gold." David Denby was ambivalent on the film's overall scope in ''New Yorker'', but he praised Neeson who "moves his big body through confined spaces (virtually the entire movie takes place in the airplane) with so much power that you expect him to rip out the seats."

Richard Corliss Richard Nelson Corliss (March 6, 1944 – April 23, 2015) was an American film critic and magazine editor for ''Time''. He focused on movies, with occasional articles on other subjects. He was the former editor-in-chief of ''Film Comment ...

in''

Time Time is the continuous progression of existence that occurs in an apparently irreversible process, irreversible succession from the past, through the present, and into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequ ...

'' wrote that the film "is no more or less than what it intends to be.... Why demand logic of an action movie released in February, when audiences just want a nice, bumpy ride?" Susan Wloszczyna of '' RogerEbert.com'' wrote that the movie "is so ridiculously entertaining in spite of its occasional lapses in real-world logic." Tom Shone of ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...

'' maintained a similar tone in his review, saying of Neeson: "He's at his best striding up and down the aisles of the aircraft with that big, rolling gait of his, carving out great wads of air with his hands, barking orders, his face in Rodin-ish profile, his destiny, like Mitchum's, enlivened by a nobility far greater than the film he finds himself in – the true sign of a B-movie king".

Possible sequel

On June 11, 2014, ''

'' reported that in an interview with producer

, he talked about the possibility of a

sequel A sequel is a work of literature, film, theatre, television, music, or video game that continues the story of, or expands upon, some earlier work. In the common context of a narrative work of fiction, a sequel portrays events set in the same ...

and stated that it will not be happening on a plane again. "I need to think of a way to put them in an equal situation. But when I make a sequel I like to replicate the experience not replicate the movie. I'm not going to put them on a plane again, of course. He has a touch of

Sherlock Holmes Sherlock Holmes () is a Detective fiction, fictional detective created by British author Arthur Conan Doyle. Referring to himself as a "Private investigator, consulting detective" in his stories, Holmes is known for his proficiency with obser ...

in that he has to figure out what's going on and then he has to figure out how to solve it. I think that character's a great character and we'll try to figure something else to do. I haven't thought about it yet but I have to, sooner or later."

References

External links

* * * * {{Authority control 2014 action thriller films 2010s disaster films 2010s mystery thriller films 2014 films Aftermath of the September 11 attacks 2014 crime thriller films American action thriller films American aviation films American disaster films American mystery thriller films English-language French films Films scored by John Ottman Films about aviation accidents or incidents Films about aircraft hijackings American films about revenge British films about revenge Canadian films about revenge French films about revenge Films about terrorism in the United States Films about terrorism in Europe Films directed by Jaume Collet-Serra Films set in 2014 Films set in Iceland Films set in New York City Films set in Washington, D.C. Films set on airplanes Films shot in New York City Films produced by Joel Silver French action thriller films French disaster films French mystery thriller films British action thriller films British aviation films British disaster films British mystery thriller films Canadian action thriller films American crime thriller films Canadian crime thriller films French crime thriller films British crime thriller films Canadian aviation films Canadian disaster films Canadian mystery thriller films Silver Pictures films StudioCanal films Universal Pictures films 2010s English-language films 2010s American films 2010s Canadian films 2010s British films 2010s French films English-language crime thriller films English-language action thriller films English-language mystery thriller films