Liam Neeson stars as United States Air Marshall Bill Marks, on a trans-Atlantic flight from New York to London. Everything appears to be going smoothly when Marks begins to receive mysterious messages from someone threatening to kill a passenger every 20 minutes unless $150 million is wired into his account. It is up to Marks to save the flight while the passengers increasingly turn against him.

            Nonstop is a pretty standard action film, and it manages to entertain throughout its nearly two-hour running time. The element of the text messages being used to communicate with the assailant hiding in plain sight is an interesting twist, but it seems to have been derived from other sources. For example, the texts coming from inside the plane is similar to the urban legend of a killer threatening a babysitter, only for her to find out he is calling from inside the house. It also follows the standard action movie track, building suspense and giving away false clues to the viewer, and ending with the gigantic fight at the end. Along for the ride is Jen Summers (Julianne Moore) the passenger sitting next to Marks, who emerges as the token sidekick of the film.

Liam Neeson portrays Bill Marks well, however the main problem is his star power. Everyone, regardless of who he is playing on screen, sees Liam Neeson as Liam Neeson. Marks is portrayed as having a dark past, which allows for an emotional connection with both the viewer as well as the villain. Rather than some unstoppable force however Marks, though still wildly over the top, has an element that brings him down to Earth. Nonstop doesn’t get much deeper than that but it IS an action film, so what matters in the end is the fighting.

Through 110 minutes of runtime, we get to see Liam Neeson punch, kick, shoot, and smash his way around the plane, which takes quite a beating. The fight is as awesome as you would expect, taking place inside a damaged plane doing barrel rolls and rapidly rising and falling, adding in some zero gravity elements.  However, things can be a bit boring at times. Since the majority of the story takes place on a plane, there isn’t much in the way of varied set pieces. You have the same locations over and over again, which can get monotonous. The effects also seem phony at times, but 99 percent of the time work well.

Nonstop is a standard Liam Neeson action film. It’s suspenseful, and will satisfy most action fans. The who love giant set pieces set may be disappointed forever, and the action is more old school. Those who absolutely love action films will enjoy this film; others may find it sub-standard.