While trapped on a plane, how do you stop a threat and keep the passengers calm? In February 2014, Bill Marks might be able to answer that question for us, if he makes it off the plane alive.
Directing this 106 minute action/mystery/thriller is Jaume Collet-Serra.
Flying through this flick is: Liam Neeson as Bill Marks, Julianne Moore as Jen Summers, Michelle Dockery as Nancey, Cory Stoll as Austin Reilly, Nate Parker as Zack White and Scoot McNairy as Tom Bowen.
Bill's a federal marshal that just got on board a transatlantic flight from New York to London. By all appearances, everything seems normal about today. So, Bill got seated, did his check in, made it through the
take off (which was rough because he hates to fly) and prepared for a long, boring flight. Since the phones the marshals use have a secured network, Bill thought the text messages he was receiving must be some stupid prank. Bill quickly realizes however, the would-be prank is actually a real threat. Apparently, the mystery person on the other side of the phone wants 150 million dollars put into an off shore account, or people on the plane will die every 20 minutes. Since landing the plane isn't an option, Bill has to figure out who is doing this and stop them, without letting the passengers know their lives may be in danger.
So, Neeson jumps back into the action hero role with this one, and yeah for the most part it is a non-stop thrill ride. The storyline has a great mystery that will have you gritting your teeth with every turn. I really liked the playthrough and was surprised on how well everything transitioned so smoothly. I have to say, I was unsure of the idea behind this movie at first. Do you seriously want to box in such a great cast and try to do the whole movie on just the plane? Mainly, because at that point, everyone and everything is trapped in one set (with maybe 20 minutes split on the beginning and the end between other sets) and I haven't seen many good movies that were able to pull it off. Yet in this case because of a solid script, an awesome job by the cast and good directing by Collet-Serra, this movie only needed one set to make something highly entertaining. The only drawback was that as we were working our way towards the end I was starting to look forward to wrapping everything up. Not that I was getting bored really, it's just I can only sit on the edge of my seat in anticipation for so long before my butt starts to go numb. Maybe I just need to find a theater with better seats... hmm. Anyway, by the time it started to get a little long for me, the end hits and that's when everything turns full throttle, and I totally forgot about the chair/butt issue. (I just realized I share too much at times, sorry.) Overall, great film, well worth the time and money to see it, especially if you enjoy mysteries.
It's rated PG-13 for violence and language.
4 non-stop stars.
Labels: action, Cory Stoll, Jaume Collet-Serra, Julianne Moore, Liam Neeson, Michelle Dockery, Movie Review, mystery, Nate Parker, Non-Stop, Scoot McNairy, thriller
