Starring: Liam Neeson, Julianne Moore, and Michelle Dockery.
Distributor: StudioCanal
Runtime: 106 mins. Reviewed in Mar 2014
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This French-American action thriller tells the story of an International flight going wrong on a “non-stop” connection from New York to London.
A jaded, burnt-out US Federal Air Marshall, Bill Marks (Liam Neeson), who is stressed and alcoholic and dislikes both airports and flying, takes a job as Air Marshall on what should have been a routine trans-Atlantic flight on Aquatlantic Flight 10 with 150 passengers on board. It is a flight where passengers can have alcohol on take-off, and anyone can text on their mobiles. Sitting next to Jen Summers (Julianne Moore), Marks receives a series of unexpected text messages from an unknown source that someone on his flight will be killed every 20 minutes, unless 150 million US dollars are deposited into an off-shore bank account while the plane is in flight.
He reports the messages to the Captain of the plane, and expresses amazement when he is told that the account number for the deposit is the number of his own account. A bomb is found on board, and he is seen as a hijacker by those on the plane, except possibly whoever is responsible for everything that is happening. Under attack on all fronts, Marks reacts aggressively, as the plane’s passengers turn on him in fear.
Most of the action takes place in the passenger cabins of the plane, which gives the setting of the movie a claustrophobic feel. The villain has to be someone on the plane, and while the flight continues, their identity stays elusive, and people, including the Captain of the plane, keep on dying.
The movie has two very bankable and classy actors (Neeson and Moore) to cope with the tension and suspense, which mount as the film progresses. Marks not only has to stop the passengers being killed one by one, but he has to do something about the people turning on him as the suspected hijacker. He also has to win over Jen Summers, because he needs her help as well as the support of the chief stewardess (Michelle Dockery). And the real culprit has to be found, whoever that is.
There are many good movies that are built around crises in the air, the most recent one being “Flight” (see this website for review), which is about an alcoholic Captain crash-landing his plane and saving most of his passengers’ lives. Most movies are about those on a plane being threatened by its malfunction, or having to deal somehow with the reasons why an aircraft, for one reason or another, gets out of control. There are elements of all these in the present movie, but the film’s thriller-action components occur in a space that is a microcosm of the world outside – that is assumed to be under the threat of constant terrorism. With this as its broad context and mention of 9/11 and countries that lie about their security – all ensuring the film’s contemporary relevance – Jaume Collett-Sera directs with the stops out, and Neeson in full throttle. There are only so many ways of discretely killing passengers on a plane while it keeps flying at 40,000 feet, and nerves fray all round as the body count escalates, and the clues remain ambiguous.
The plot’s secrets unfold with time, but the solution to everything is not as satisfying as the moments of surprise from the unexpected twists in the story-line. Neeson and Moore do a good job of keeping the tension alive. Those responsible are not exposed until the end, everyone looks realistically terrified, and scenes of the aircraft in trouble are suitably reinforced by the film’s sophisticated special effects team. As Neeson’s frenzied paranoia calms down and the stricken plane attempts to descend with its bomb on board about to go off, the film’s moments of tension achieve high impact.
This action-thriller movie will be enjoyed most by those keen to guess what is going to happen next. Although not a world-beater in the drama stakes and frequently straining credibility, the film makes good use of the emotions of fear and panic that can naturally go together – especially, if one has the bad luck to be a passenger on a flight that goes as wrong as this one does.
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