Non-Stop (2014) * * *

Directed by:  Jaume Collet-Serra

Starring:  Liam Neeson, Julianne Moore, Scoot McNairy, Michelle Dockery

I feared that Non-Stop would be Taken aboard an airplane instead of the streets of Paris.     Thank goodness I was wrong.     I enjoyed Taken, with all of its implausibilities, because it tapped into every parent's fear that his child may one day be kidnapped.     Fortunately for Bryan Mills, he had a lifetime of CIA experience to rescue his daughter.     In Non-Stop, Neeson's air marshal Bill Marks begins receiving texts that one passenger will be killed every 20 minutes unless $150 million is wired to a bank account (which, in a twist, is opened in Marks' name).     With 150 passengers aboard and plenty of unforeseen obstacles, the task of finding the terrorist is difficult.  

Marks is no boy scout.   He is an alcoholic with a questionable past, but he is smart and observant.    Yet, somehow events are skewed to make it look like he indeed may be the hijacker.    With his past as a hindrance, his credibility with the passengers is at risk also.    In one funny scene, Marks is able to quell an increasingly hostile crowd with three words "Free air travel."    I wonder if the airline ever followed up on that promise.  

Non-Stop could have very easily stepped wrong, and maybe it did, but it focuses its efforts on suspense rather than violence.    There is a scene where Neeson disarms a suspect in the tiny airplane lavatory, which is inventive, but other than that Neeson is as perplexed as the rest of us.     Even after everything is resolved, we still may be a little perplexed anyway.    But Non-Stop is well crafted enough so we don't consider its implausibilites.    An airplane is one place you don't want to encounter trouble because in most cases there is nowhere to go but down in a heap of flames.    Non-Stop touches on those fears for its effect.  

A good deal of the suspense depends on trying to figure out the identity of the terrorist.   We think we have it nailed down, only to be fooled repeatedly.     I even tried to use Roger Ebert's Law of Economy of Characters, which stated any character who seems superfluous must be the villain, killer, etc.     This applies to Julianne Moore's character, especially, who seems to be a kind business traveler who ingratiates herself to Marks.     Is she trying to set him up?   Or is she just attracted to the big lug and want a roll in the hay?    Even Ebert's law doesn't apply here, but when the terrorist is revealed, it makes sense and isn't thrown in from left field.    Non-Stop is by its nature silly and preposterous, but I enjoyed it.