I want to give Non-Stop the benefit of the doubt, because I truly enjoyed it, certainly more than any of the other films in the Grizzled Action Hero phase of Liam Neeson’s career. It deftly plays with audience expectations and genre-savvy to yield more red herrings than a Lenten Fish Fry to keep the whodunit simmering for most of its tight 106-minute runtime.
An example of how Non-Stop plays with tropes is its use of lead actress Julianne Moore. “The Most Famous Person Did It” is such a classic problem with mystery film and television I remember noticing it in reruns of Murder She Wrote when I was in grade school. Non-Stop knows you are wondering if Julianne Moore is slumming it here because she wants that juicy villain monologue at the end. So she gets lots of opportunities to do suspiciously weird things, but also plenty of opportunities to be vulnerable and likable, so we don’t just assume she’s the bad guy and decide to just watch Air Force One again. At some point we wonder… could she possibly be an age-appropriate love-interest for Liam Neeson? It’s almost inconceivable!
Then there’s a half-dozen or so recognizable character actors taking turns being potentially sinister and/or mean enough we want to see Liam Neeson punch them, even if they might not be the terrorist in question. (Liam Neeson will ultimately punch nearly all of them). Is it the shifty businessman? The genteel captain? The John McClane wannabe who is already making fists with his toes because he’s got so much anger? The squirrelly oversharer played by that guy named Skeet or Street or Poot or something? The brown guy in the kufi (please don’t be the brown guy in the kufi)?
Maybe it is Lupita!!!
Spoiler alert: it is not Lupita. In fact, one of the most precious things about this movie is that it clearly got a last-minute Lupita-heavy re-edit to reflect her It Girl status. Her character is named (Gwen) but she’s really just an extra (Flight Attendant #2), with no significant dialogue (the film would even pass the Bechdel Test without her!) and zero characterization. But there are so many pointless cuts to Lupita B-Roll. Liam Neeson sneaks around the galley. But what is Lupita doing? (Checking the latch on an overhead bin.) Liam Neeson defies his superiors at DHS. But what is Lupita doing? (Picking a piece of lint off her uniform.) Liam Neeson punches a guy. BUT WHAT. IS. LUPITA. DOING!? (Making a “who is this punch-happy jackass?” face.)
But I digress. Everyone’s a suspect (I seriously entertained the notion that the shy unaccompanied minor would be an accessory to the terrorist plot somehow), and that’s a big part of why Non-Stop works. But scratch that seemingly clever surface and Non-Stop has a quintessential Idiot Plot, as defined by Roger Ebert: “a plot containing problems that would be solved instantly if all the characters were not idiots.” It’s cat and mouse between a villain doing asinine things for incomprehensible reasons and a hero who responds irrationally, which could all be avoided if the pilot would just make an unscheduled landing (I know from long-haul flights, and you’re not “in the Middle of the Atlantic!” When Halifax is 45 minutes behind you).
Often the most plausible explanation for the main character’s strange behaviors is “because that’s the way a man’s man would do it.” Liam Neeson doesn’t tell anyone he was [minor spoiler] just forced to kill his partner in self-defense because… that makes him all the more tragically guarded with his emotional pain? (He’s got the requisite dead daughter backstory and surprisingly not-inconvenient drinking problem.) I don’t really understand why being tragically guarded with emotional pain is on the Action Hero Checklist to begin with. Look, I’ve got dead family and stunted emotions too, and I’m decidedly not a badass.
Non-Stop is usually gripping enough to distract you from its various weaknesses, but it’s got no choice but to tear open its nonsensical underbelly when the villain (or villains!?!) are revealed, and no, there isn’t some hidden agenda that makes all the ridiculous stuff that’s happened make any more sense. Fortunately the movie is almost over then.
Robin Hitchcock is an American writer living in Cape Town. Her feelings about Lupita Nyong’o are comparable to Key & Peele’s valets’ regarding “Liam Neesons.”