Written by: Chris Kessler

Without Liam Neeson, international travelers would be doomed.

“Non-Stop” is a perfect mix of Alfred Hitchcock suspense with Hollywood’s top action star, Liam Neeson, doing what he does best.

Neeson stars as an air marshal aboard an international flight that has been threatened by terrorists. An anonymous texter tells Neeson that a passenger will die every 20 minutes until $150 million is deposited into an account.

From the start, the movie is filled with red herrings, and soon everyone becomes a suspect−including Neeson, who holds the movie together and makes it work.

The camera is on Neeson for nearly the entire film as he works through the mystery. If Neeson were any less of an actor, this movie would be a disaster.

Outside of Neeson and Julianne Moore, the film is full of no-name actors that you may vaguely recognize; however, they fill their roles quite well because they give Neeson something to play off of.

The entire movie is a cat-and-mouse game between the audience and the director, which works perfectly with the rapid pace. “Non-Stop” gives you a hint as to who the killer is, engaging the audience as they try to figure out the killer’s identity.

Once the movie gets into gear, it becomes your typical race-against-the-clock scenario, but as the clock ticks closer to the end, the audience can feel the tension and excitement.

The constant action can make the movie hard to follow, but that is the film’s greatest strength, making it a nonstop (pun not intended) thrill ride.

Because there are a lot of plot holes, I left the theater with many unanswered questions continuously popping into my mind. There’s also an unbelievable, unrealistic act of physics that goes against anything you’ve ever read in a physics book; simply put, it makes you think, “Yea freakin’ right.”

However, most of my confusion and disbelief didn’t bubble to the surface until after the credits rolled. “Non-Stop” delivers on what it promises; for the entire 110 minutes, I was completely enthralled.

The film doesn’t try to be something it’s not; it is unrealistic and ridiculous, but that’s the fun of it. It compromises real for fake, but the end result is excitement and fun, which is what movies are all about, anyway.