Non-Stop - B-

Rated PG-13, 110 minutes

Neeson holds together the silly but exciting thriller "Non-Stop"

Liam Neeson

"Non-Stop" is an unoriginal but tense thriller starring one of my favorite actors, Liam Neeson, and without him this wouldn't be near as fun to watch. During a transatlantic flight from New York City to London, U.S. Air Marshal Bill Marks (Neeson) receives a series of cryptic text messages demanding that he instruct the government to transfer $150 million into an off-shore account or someone on the flight will be killed every 20 minutes. Directed by Jaume Collet-Serra, who directed the Neeson thriller "Unknown," the action-suspense thriller "Non-Stop" is ridiculous, often preposterous fun that's held together by the everyman glue of Neeson, who has become the go-to guy for things like this. Honestly, if you thought about it more, you may catch some of its plot holes (literally), so to enjoy this "Non-Stop" flight, it's best to sit back, fasten your seat belt and go along with it for awhile. "Non-Stop" is an exciting ride but not without some bumps along the way: it's a pretty standard, by-the-numbers action film with too many diversions and too few genuinely interesting characters, in particular wasting some fine female actresses, including Julianne Moore (a lovely face but largely unnecessary here), as well as "Downton Abbey's" Michelle Dockery and "12 Years a Slave's" Lupita Nyong'o, both underused here as flight attendants. On the plus side, the energetic pacing keeps the film flowing to an over-the-top, breathless finale that is easily the film's centerpiece, not to mention it has Neeson as its star, a fine actor and a terrific action film star, and while this isn't his best action film of late (see 2012's "The Grey"), it's certainly one of his more entertaining. "Non-Stop" flies by so quickly you may not notice its imperfections, but it can be intense fun in the right moment, just as long as it's not shown as an in-flight movie.

Wes's Grade: B-