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If "Non-Stop" proves anything, besides confirming that 61-year-old Liam Neeson is not going to be knocked off his perch as the elder statesman of B-movie tough guys any time soon, it’s that snakes on a plane have nothing on texts on a plane when it comes to in-flight annoyances.

If I wanted to read my way through a film that features words dancing around the screen as if they were waltzing Post-Its, I would have sat through a foreign movie with subtitles instead.

But what would modern-day thrillers be these days without cell phones as a shorthand way to advance the plot and reduce the need for any actual clever repartee between characters? Especially when the clock is ticking down the minutes until something either goes boo or boom.

Certainly, this mile-high action flick would barely get off the ground without such technological aids, considering its premise is as reliant on Miss Marple mysteries—specifically, the gathering of potential perpetrators who conform to certain types—as it is on digital devices.

The rather ingenious if preposterous premise, one that only goes way off course in the heavy-handed third act: Neeson’s burned-out alcoholic air marshal struggles to find the fellow passenger aboard his New York-to-London flight who has sent him anonymous messages threatening that someone on the plane will be killed every 20 minutes until $150 million is deposited in a special account.

As most frequent flyers, know there are rules about phone use once you leave the gate. But ignoring such regulations is just one of the reasons "Non-Stop" is so ridiculously entertaining in spite of its occasional lapses in real-world logic. Nicotine addicts might vicariously appreciate how Neeson’s Bill Marks disables the smoke detector in the lavatory—duct tape is the key—so he can puff away while aloft with impunity. Others may be awed by how our grizzled hero takes advantage of the narrow confines of that same bathroom to efficiently pulverize an attacker to death.

Director Jaume Collet-Serra and veteran producer Joel Silver (" The Matrix " franchise, " Die Hard " and " Die Hard 2 "), who both previously teamed with Neeson on 2011’s " Unknown ", happily settle for economy-class storytelling. They know that their not-so-gentle giant of a star will emote just enough to keep the audience satisfied as he forcefully strides through the aisles and shouts orders in his resonant Irish burr. They also know how to humanize him, as Neeson kindly reassures the mandatory unaccompanied minor, a blonde moppet with stuffed animal in tow.

They do, however, indulge in upgrades when it comes to the supporting cast—most suspicious characters in their own special way. Many are over-qualified for the assignment, similar to the way stage legend Helen Hayes played a little old lady stowaway in 1970's " Airport ". Rest assured none will be winning an Oscar like Hayes did for her ride in the sky, but attaching themselves to the coattails of a late-career box-office titan like Neeson is a reward in itself.

Look, there's "Downton Abbey"'s Lady Mary— Michelle Dockery —as the main flight attendant (I kept wishing she would pull a Karen Black and commandeer the cockpit, but there is always the possible sequel). That bald NYPD cop who keeps grousing? Corey Stoll from Netflix's "House of Cards". And isn't that Scoot McNairy of " Argo " as the skinny nervous guy with glasses?

And what about four-time Oscar nominee Julianne Moore as an over-stressed businesswoman who is lucky enough to be seated next to a grimacing Neeson? And, speaking of Academy Awards, current supporting actress nominee Lupita Nyong’o of " 12 Years a Slave ", who spouts barely five lines on camera in a fetching British accent, is Lady Mary's fellow attendant. There is also a Muslim doctor (racial profiling opportunity, naturally) and a nerdy black computer specialist for added diversity.

The twist, which is revealed in the trailer, is that the terrorist mastermind behind this stunt has figured out a way to manipulate matters so that Neeson's disgruntled marshal appears to be a hijacker holding everyone hostage. It doesn't help that he keeps waving his gun and roughing up the passengers while increasing the ever-present post-9/11 levels of paranoia. In one of several welcome comic-relief moments, as the passengers appear ready to mutiny against their supposed captor, Neeson suddenly offers everyone free international travel for a year on behalf of the airline.

If it saddens anyone that the Oscar-nominated Nazi fighter in "Schindler’s List" is employing his skills as an amateur boxer these days more than his flair for the dramatic to make a living, worry not. Neeson shows he has still got it as the voice of the wee swivel-headed figure known as Bad Cop/Good Cop in " The Lego Movie ", a role that allows him to be less plastic than he is in "Non-Stop".

Susan Wloszczyna

Susan Wloszczyna spent much of her nearly thirty years at USA TODAY as a senior entertainment reporter. Now unchained from the grind of daily journalism, she is ready to view the world of movies with fresh eyes.

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Non-Stop (2014)

Rated PG-13

106 minutes

Liam Neeson as Bill Marks

Julianne Moore as Jen Summers

Scoot McNairy as Tom Bowen

Michelle Dockery as Nancy

Anson Mount as Jack Hammond

Lupita Nyong'o as Gwen

Corey Stoll as Austin

Linus Roache as David McMillan

Jon Abrahams as David Norton

• Jaume Collet-Serra
• John W. Richardson
• Christopher Roach

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Action Hero Liam Neeson Stars In 'Non-Stop'

Kenneth Turan

The crisp and efficient thriller Non-Stop benefits from the intangibles that Liam Neeson brings to the role of a U.S. air marshal dealing with a nightmare scenario.

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Non-Stop review: Liam Neeson claims his crown as B-movie king

"Nervous flyer?" asks Julianne Moore after she notices Liam Neeson fiddling nervously before take off. "It never quite goes away," Neeson replies. You don't know the half of it, lady.

The last flight Neeson was on crash-landed in the Alaskan tundra, where his fellow passengers were picked off, one by one, by a pack of ravenous grey wolves. The year before that, in Unknown, Neeson landed at Berlin Tagel Airport for a biotechnology summit only to have someone steal his wife, his identity and all respect for German traffic codes. And before that we had Taken, in which Neeson had his daughter kidnapped at Charles de Gaulle Airport by Albanian slave traffickers. Neeson and foreigners don't mix. Neeson and airports don't mix . But Neeson and foreign airports is really asking for trouble. If Moore had any sense, she would have seen who was sat next to her, excused herself and caught the next flight.

Such are the lessons of the Neeson action thriller, or Neesploitation film, as it is affectionately known. The affection is genuine enough. Every year, as everyone is booking their Oscar de La Renta gowns for the red carpet at the Oscars, a studio releases a thriller in which Neeson has his daughter or wife stolen from him, thus forcing him to drive construction nails into men's thighs and say things like "I'll tear down the Eiffel tower if I have to!"

For all their brutality, the films plug into and rely upon the essential gentleness of the Neeson persona – that soft protective burr. Only Neeson could deliver a line like: "In about five seconds I am going to start beating the shit out of you" as he did in The Grey and make it sound, not like a boast, or a threat, but merely a helpful piece of information, shared in the interests of a peaceful resolution for all concerned parties.

Still setting flight attendant hearts a flutter, but too decent to flirt with the too-young tootsie in the seat behind him, Neeson enjoys a nice, relaxed rapport with Moore, whose looser, Keaton-esque side seems to come out when cast opposite noble hunks. Neeson plays Bill Marks, a retired air marshal with a drink problem and a picture of his daughter in his wallet.

In case you haven't heard: someone on the plane starts texting Neeson, threatening to kill a passenger every 20 minutes unless $150m is deposited in a bank account. I'm a sucker for aircraft thrillers that try to observe the Aristotelian unities – a small if flawed group that includes Executive Decision, Passenger 57, Flight Plan and Wes Craven's half-brilliant Red Eye – although I'm less of a fan of these screenwriter-ex-machina villains, with their overly precise demands and insinuating insights into the hero's private life. They're really little more than Post-It notes from the screenwriter saying "Villain to come … "

The general rule seems to be that the amount of threat summoned in the first half of the movie is exactly equal to the ludicrousness of the explanation tying everything together in the second. The director, Jaume Collet-Serra, has improved on the pacing of his last collaboration with Neeson, 2011's Unknown. He's also assembled quite a cast: not just Moore but Lupita Nyong'o, as a flight attendant with two or three lines to rattle off in a cockney accent; Corey Stoll as a NYPD officer also on the flight; and Downton Abbey's Michelle Dockery , whose elegantly dulcet voice threatens to mesmerize all within a 30-yard radius every time she opens her mouth. Collet-Serra shoots with a shallow depth of field, blurring everyone into shapes looming in Bill's background, whether because of the scotch he downed before the flight or his incipient paranoia is hard to tell.

For all the brushed-steel modernism of the film's cinematography, the plot pays touching tribute to Miss Marple, and in particular to the old Agatha Christie trick of ushering the entire dramatis persona into the vicarage, before allowing the finger of suspicion to fall on each in turn. Substitute an aircraft at 40,000 feet for the vicarage and Liam Neeson for Angela Lansbury and you pretty much have Non-Stop .

"I'm not a good father! I'm not a good man! But I want to save this plane!" declaims Neeson at one point, as the bodies start to pile up at his feet, and the tide of suspicion threatens to sweep him away. He's asked to roughhouse a few of the passengers and it looks a little unconvincing, to be honest: bouts of Segal-ish brutality that Neeson can't be done with fast enough. He's big and bearish, but he's never been a brute.

He's at his best striding up and down the aisles of the aircraft with that big, rolling gait of his, carving out great wads of air with his hands, barking orders, his face in Rodin-ish profile, his destiny, like Mitchum's, enlivened by a nobility far greater than the film he finds himself in – the true sign of a B-movie king.

Only once has the Neesploitation film touched greatness, in Joe Carnahan's The Grey, a keening, white-knuckled scrap of a film about life and death in the tundra that is on its way, I believe, to becoming a minor classic. Non-stop is the flimsiest of black box recorders, by contrast, that never threatens to make even intermittent sense, but it hangs together on the bulky shoulders of its star. Nothing I saw on TV this week was quite as civilised as the actor's admission, on 60 Minutes, that he was a "wee bit embarrassed" by the prospecting of beating people up at the age of 61. As if violence were something young men grow out of. Imagine.

Non-Stop is in US theatres this week

• Liam Neeson
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• Michelle Dockery

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Film Review: ‘Non-Stop’

Action star Liam Neeson reteams with 'Unknown' director Jaume Collet-Serra for another round of pseudo-Hitchcockian hijinks.

By Scott Foundas

Scott Foundas

• Film Review: ‘Black Mass’ 9 years ago
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Continuing his prodigious run of duosyllabic, Euro-financed action movies, Liam Neeson is back with a gun in his hand and a weary grimace on his long Irish mug in “ Non-Stop ,” a sometimes inspired, mostly serviceable doomed-airliner thriller that reunites its star with “Unknown” director Jaume Collet-Serra for another round of pseudo-Hitchcockian hijinks. Lacking anywhere near as clever as script this time, Neeson and Collet-Serra put this wronged-man programmer dutifully through its paces, with plenty of the gruff machismo and close-quarters grappling that have made the 61-year-old actor a late-career global action star. (Can an “Expendables” cameo be far in the future?) Turnstiles should click briskly for this Studiocanal/Joel Silver co-production, which opens overseas today, 48 hours ahead of its Stateside bow.

It’s easy to imagine that “Non-Stop” was pitched as “’Unknown’ on an airplane,” with Neeson once again spending most of the running time trying to convince people that he is who he says he is — in this case, the federal air marshal trying to root out a hijacker, as opposed to being the hijacker himself. But the script, credited to tyro scribes John W. Richardson, Chris Roach and Ryan Engle, also bears more than a glancing resemblance to 2005’s “Flightplan,” in which Jodie Foster’s grieving widow becomes convinced that someone has kidnapped her young daughter in the middle of a transatlantic jumbo-jet flight. There, Peter Sarsgaard was the seemingly benevolent air marshal who turned out to be a raging psycho intent on turning the plane into a giant WMD; here, someone who perhaps saw that movie is trying to frame Neeson’s Bill Marks to appear the same way.

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When we first see Marks, sitting in his car outside JFK on a rainy, wintry day, the bottle of Jim Beam in his hand tells us he’s a man with a troubled/tragic past that will inevitably come home to roost somewhere around the movie’s third act. Collet-Serra then plows through the other scene-setting details in similarly expedient fashion, introducing an “Airport”-worthy cast of passengers that includes a frazzled businesswoman (Julianne Moore), a tough New York cop (Corey Stoll), a thirtysomething slacker dude (Scoot McNairy), a Muslim doctor (Omar Metwally) just waiting to be racially profiled, and the de rigueur unaccompanied minor. The only real surprise: not a priest or a nun anywhere in sight. By 10 minutes in, the movie is airborne, and by 15, Marks has received the first in a series of anonymous text messages (sent over the plane’s secure network) stating that someone on board will be killed every 20 minutes until $150 million is transferred into a designated bank account. In a sure sign of our inflationary times, “Flightplan’s” criminal mastermind only asked for a mere $50 million.

One of the consistent pleasures of airplane movies, at least for frequent flyers, lies in seeing the fictional airline names and logos dreamed up by movie production designers, along with the simulated aircraft themselves, their rows and aisles invariably enlarged to accommodate the camera’s passage. (In the movies, every seat is an Economy Comfort seat.) Here, we’re on board a British Aqualantic 767 bound for Heathrow, and it comes equipped with a crew whose members, all too plausibly, initially dismiss the threatening messages as a hoax. (They include captain Linus Roache, co-pilot Jason Butler Harner, and flight attendants Michelle Dockery and Lupita Nyong’o, who has precious little to do in a role she clearly filmed before anyone had seen “12 Years a Slave.”) Then someone dies right on schedule, and it’s Marks who has their blood on his hands. He also, it turns out, has his name on that aforementioned bank account.

From this point forward, viewers are best advised to make with their disbelief as one does with oversized cabin baggage: Check it at the door. The ultimate revelations about Neeson’s semi-amnesiac “Unknown” character notwithstanding, we sense from the start of “Non-Stop” that Marks is a good guy who’s been set up, and for a while the film sustains a reasonably fun game of whodunit, as the body count rises and the hair-trigger Marks begins interrogating passengers with a bedside manner that makes “Taken’s” Bryan Mills seem like Florence Nightingale. That even an air marshal could manage to get away with such behavior in an age when commercial airline passengers have bum-rushed and hog-tied flight disruptors for far less violent offenses stretches the movie’s already elastic sense of plausible reality to the breaking point more than once. But even in the movie’s most ridiculous moments, Collet-Serra keeps the pacing brisk and knows how to divert our attention with a well-timed bit of comic relief. Sensing a potential passenger riot on his hands, Marks quells the fire by announcing that Aqualantic is offering everyone free international travel for a full year.

A protege of producer Joel Silver, the Spanish-born Collet-Serra (who already has a third Neeson pic, “Run All Night,” in the can for next February) is an able-bodied genre craftsman with a love of old-fashioned plot mechanics and an unusual generosity to actors, who are afforded more quiet, character-revealing moments in his movies than such fare typically allows. By its very design an exercise in claustrophobia, “Non-Stop” eventually runs out of places to go, and builds to a big third-act reveal that’s at once so ludicrous and heavy-handed that it sucks all the thrust out of the movie’s jet engines. It’s also the first of Collet-Serra’s movies in which so many good actors are put to such little use, including Moore, who like most of her fellow passengers is there mainly to arouse passing suspicion and get roughed up at Neeson’s hands.

But Neeson himself is a compelling presence throughout, even if we’ve now seen him play this sort of lone man of action at least a half-dozen times. Typecasting isn’t necessarily a liability if you’re an actor with Neeson’s knack for sauntering through a scene as though his body were weighing heavily on his shoulders, and woe be to all who obstruct his path. It’s been widely noted how “unlikely” it is for the “Schindler’s List” Oscar nominee to have been reborn, close to retirement age, as a latter-day Charles Bronson or Clint Eastwood. But it’s age, weariness and disappointment that are precisely Neeson’s greatest virtues. As he kicks butt onscreen, he seems a man hardened by real experience, not by hours spent in the gym.

Reunited with most of his “Unknown” crew, Collet-Serra delivers a technically proficient package, aided by the moody cabin lighting of d.p. Flavio Labiano and a bassy, propulsive John Ottman score.

Reviewed at AMC Empire, New York, Feb. 19, 2013. MPAA Rating: PG-13. Running time: 106 MIN.

• Production: (U.S.-France) A Universal (in U.S.)/Studiocanal (international) release and presentation of a Silver Pictures production in association with Anton Capital Entertainment S.C.A. and Lovefilm. Produced by Joel Silver, Andrew Rona, Alex Heineman. Executive producers, Steve Richards, Ron Halpern, Olivier Courson, Herbert W. Gaines, Jeff Wadlow. Co-producers, Richard Mirisch, Adam Kuhn.
• Crew: Directed by Jaume Collet-Serra. Screenplay, John W. Richardson, Chris Roach, Ryan Engle; story, Richardson, Roach. Camera (Technicolor, widescreen, 35mm), Flavio Labiano; editor, Jim May; music, John Ottman; music supervisor, Andy Ross; production designer, Alexander Hammond; art director, David Swayze; set decorator, Regina Graves; digital set designer, Sam Page; sound (Datasat/Dolby Digital), Danny Michael; supervising sound editor, Ron Bochar; re-recording mixers, Ron Bochar, Steve Maslow; visual effects supervisor, Richard Yuricich; visual effects, Prime Focus World, Prologue Films, User T38, Image Engine; associate producers, Stephen Bender, Carmel Musgrove; assistant director, Chris Surgent; casting, Amanda Mackey, Cathy Sandrich Gelfond.
• With: Liam Neeson, Julianne Moore, Scoot McNairy, Michelle Dockery, Nate Parker, Corey Stoll, Lupita Nyong’o, Omar Metwally, Jason Butler Harner, Linus Roache, Shea Whigham, Anson Mount. (English dialogue)

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In  Non-Stop   Liam Neeson plays Bill Marks, a sad-sack U.S. air marshal who takes a non-stop transcontinental flight to London, only to wind up embroiled in a bizarre terrorist incident. Upon takeoff, Marks receives a text message from an unseen antagonist promising that he/she will kill a passenger every twenty minutes, unless Marks comes up with a way to transfer hundreds of millions of dollars to a specific bank account.

When the threat turns out to be credible, Marks finds himself in the middle of a deadly game on a short play clock. However, the more he tries to get to the heart of the matter, the more Bill Marks begins to sink deeper into a carefully-orchestrated scheme that could cost the lives of all his passengers - and so much more than that.

Right from the premise of its story,  Non-Stop  is a risky proposition: single-setting thriller in one of the most constricted public spaces imaginable (a commercial airliner); a flimsy device (pun intended) driving the plot (in this case, text messaging); with a running clock hanging over it all. However, in spite of the fact that the movie basically hits just about every one of the most obvious cliches and logic gaps you likely imagined it would, the Liam Neeson action-star brand (with some additional aid from talented co-stars) provides enough fuel to power Non-Stop  through to its final destination.

Director Jaume Collet-Serra is best known for adding a bit of extra flair to B-movie material like  House of Wax  (2005),  Orphan -  and of course Unknown , his previous pairing with Liam Neeson.  Non-Stop  hovers at the same altitude as most of Collet-Serra's other work: more entertaining than expected, cleverly and stylishly executed in many respects, but found to be gliding on fumes when broken down in serious examination.

On a directorial front, Non-Stop  uses tight framing and smart blocking to make the most out of its setting, utilizing the constricted space as an advantageous way of limiting the audience's ability to scrutinize the shot. The cinematic trickery isn't enough to completely save the film from a pile of logistical baggage ( "How did nobody hear/see that?" "Wouldn't you be able to spot that easily?" ) but it is enough to keep things interesting and urgent from moment to moment, as both Marks and the audience try to grasp the parlor tricks being done by magicians that seem to be lurking just out of frame. The cinematography is gritty and vivid and looks much better than the actual material its servicing - which is pretty much Collet-Serra's calling card: B-movies with A-movie production values.

Screenplay/story writers John W. Richardson, Ryan Engle and Christopher Roach are all newcomers to the feature-film writing game (Richardson and Roach are reality TV editors, and Engle is just getting into some big film projects). While the trio manage to create a tightly-paced thrill ride and manage to juggle many of the plot points they toss into the air with reasonable dexterity, the lack of experience shows in the in the by-the-numbers turns of the plot and turbulent sections of broken logic that they attempt to coast through by tossing up a new development and/or red herring to distract the eye and mind.

The final twists and reveals are a messy affair, well-played by the cast but riddled with so many logical holes - weighted down by heavy-handed pontification - it ends up being a wonder that the story's cabin pressure held as long as it did. On paper, this movie plunges into free-fall and never pulls out of it, but luckily Collet-Serra and his cast provide a parachute of mindless thrill-genre entertainment to cushion the narrative crash.

Liam Neeson has become the sort of unlikely action star that Jason Statham was in his pre- Transporter  days. Seeing a tall, gruff man shove passengers back and forth across a plane while yelling at and/or interrogate them should grow tiresome and ridiculous after about the first twenty minutes, but Neeson's no-nonsense fatherly swagger (the heart of the  Taken  franchise) makes it work, and keeps the Irish actor in the control of the film instead of letting his talented lineup of co-stars walk away with each scene. Indeed, much of  Non-Stop  only functions as a vehicle for Neeson-brand entertainment, but the important part is that with the right leading man in place, it does fly.

Julianne Moore and a lineup of solid character actors - Michelle Dockery ( Downton Abbey ), Corey Stoll ( House of Cards ), Scoot McNairy ( Argo ) Jason Butler Harner ( Alcatraz ), Anson Mount ( Hell on Wheels ), Omar Metwally ( Rendition ) and Nate Parker ( The Great Debaters ) - are tasked with maintaining altitude somewhere between charm and suspicion for the flight time of this Whodunit. Each of them does a good enough job that spotting the culprit isn't as easy as one might initially surmise; however, when the reveals are done, viewers will be all-too-familiar with some of the tricks and twists that are the rusty landing gears of this unoriginal thriller.

In the end, passengers onboard the Non-Stop movie experience are going to hit plenty of bumpy air along the way, and will have plenty of baggage to sort through afterward. But with skilled and charismatic captains in the cockpit, and a solid flight crew helping things along, this in-flight movie turns out to be an okay ride for the ticket price. Kick your seat back, let that tray table down, turn off the overhead light (your brain) and let this plane carry you to your destination.

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Non-Stop   is now playing in theaters. It is 106 minutes and is Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of action and violence, some language, sensuality and drug references.

Want to discuss the movie without ruining it for others? Head over to our  Non-Stop  Spoilers Discussion .

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Movie Review: ‘Non-Stop’ Starring Liam Neeson

I started writing this review and placing SPOILER ALERT notes all over the place. Then I realized, I’m just going to say it now. If you don’t want the predictable plot ruined, skip to the grade at the end. I did make sure to avoid saying who the supposedly secret villain is. Though of course, I spotted that person the moment they stepped on-screen. But when you’ve seen as many of these dime-a-dozen thrillers as I have, it’s that much harder to surprise me.

Getting into specifics, I know it seems like a good idea to let Liam Neeson use his very particular set of skills wherever you can. Why not do it on a plane? At least, that’s the premise of Non-Stop . Neeson plays a Federal Air Marshal who, thanks to the clumsy script, is a walking cliché. He’s not just an alcoholic. He’s not just a man who’s lost a child. He’s not just a man with a gruff exterior but has a heart of gold. He’s not just the ex-cop who lost his badge to the combination of the previous three character points. He’s ALL of these things.

Seriously, the movie plays out like the screenwriters found some way to melt down generic action movie scripts (written between 1992 and 2002) into a blender, added gelatin, hit puree, and then pressed the result in an 8½ by 11-inch mold. There’s a little girl who reminds Neeson of his own child. A passenger with a medical condition that never factors into anything besides an early anecdote. A Middle Eastern man who becomes the instant red herring. A NYC cop who will lead the charge to make sure there’s no hijacking. Another Federal Air Marshal who may not be all that he seems. The flight crew who know our hero but at times doubt his trustworthiness. The list goes on and on and on.

Well, the scenario all these stock characters are thrown into is a non-stop flight across the Atlantic (where did they get that title!?). Once they’re over the ocean, Neeson gets a text (Woo hoo! Texts!): someone on the plane is going to die every 20 minutes unless $150 million dollars is transferred into a bank account. As Neeson scours the plane for the suspect, the character and plot reveals get harder and harder to stomach and by the time they make a connection between the events on the plane and 9/11, this wannabe thriller finally devolves into an unintended and unmitigated comedy, with very little action making the trip anything approaching worthwhile.

About the only thing I appreciated about the film was that the plane set didn’t feel too much bigger than a real plane. So … yeah … that was the positive aspect I can mention. Bottom line is that if you’re looking to see the best action film Liam Neeson has done since Taken … you should go re-watch Taken (the international version of course). Non-Stop should have had to reroute somewhere between finishing the script and calling action on set. It’s simply too hard to enjoy a movie when there’s such a disconnect between audience and filmmaker interpretation. I’d rather have sat through another showing of Snakes on a Plane . At least that movie knew it shouldn’t be taken seriously and did what it said it would.

Non-Stop opens in theaters on February 28, 2014 and is rated PG-13 for intense sequences of action and violence, some language, sensuality and drug references.

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By Peter Travers

Peter Travers

Ok, who’s kidding who? This tense, terrific thriller starring Liam Neeson as Bill Marks, a boozy U.S. air marshal coping with a terrorist on a transatlantic flight from New York to London, isn’t new. It’s “Taken” on a Plane . Accept that and you’ll have a high old time.

Neeson could play this paycheck stuff in his sleep, but he gives it something extra. Marks has skeletons in his closet, family affairs he hasn’t managed to put in order. He’s an emotional basket case. But when the former NYPD cop takes his seat on this 767, he gets a wake-up call. It’s in the form of a text message from – yikes! – someone on board, demanding that $150 million be transferred to a secret account or a passenger will be killed every 20 minutes. The threat is serious. You can tell by the bodies that pile up.

Credit Spanish director Jaume Collet-Serra, who worked effectively with Neeson on Unknown , for keeping your nerves in a vise even while juggling the trite contrivances in the script, by John W. Richardson, Chris Roach and Ryan Engle. Yes, it took three writers to line up the usual suspects.

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Luckily, Non-Stop has a way-above-average cast for this kind of nonsense. Julianne Moore, as a passenger sitting next to Marks, looks trustworthy. Or does she? It’s that kind of movie. Corey Stoll, late of House of Cards on Netflix, plays a New York cop who seems a natural ally for Marks. Or is he? You get my point. It’s fun to see Oscar favorite Lupita Nyong’o ( 12 Years a Slave ) as a flight attendant. But you’ll miss her if you blink. Someone screwed up on that one. They do better with Michelle Dockery, Lady Mary on Downton Abbey , who shares flight-attendant duty but gets more screen time as she grows suspicious of Marks.

To avoid spoilers, I’m shutting up. I will say that until a preposterous ending that tries to turn a popcorn movie profound by making it topical, Non-Stop gets the job done. It’s fun to watch audiences jump in their seats and go, “Eek!”

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• DVD & Streaming
• Action/Adventure , Drama , Mystery/Suspense

Content Caution

In Theaters

• February 28, 2014
• Liam Neeson as Bill Marks; Julianne Moore as Jen Summers; Michelle Dockery as Nancy; Corey Stoll as Austin Reilly; Nate Parker as Zack White; Scoot McNairy as Tom Bowen

Home Release Date

• June 10, 2014
• Jaume Collet-Serra

Distributor

• Universal Pictures

Movie Review

Bill Marks is a man living on the ragged edge. In fact, if anyone were to see him as he sits crouched in his car in a foggy airport parking lot, pathetically pouring Scotch into a paper coffee cup, it would be clear to them that this scruffy, shaking guy is in need of a break—before he breaks.

But he’s not gonna to get one. ‘Cause Bill has a flight he’s gotta catch, and they can’t take off without him.

Oh, don’t worry, he’s not a pilot. He’s a federal air marshal. An air marshal who doesn’t even like to fly. But that’s not the problem, really. Life is Bill’s problem. It just seems to be ganging up on him. Dragging him down into a pit of depression. It all started with his daughter … but he doesn’t want to think about that.

Waiting for a British AquaAtlantic flight to London, Bill numbly scans the mulling passengers for any suspicious types. But everyone seems to be blending together these days. (The pretty woman with the scar who simply must have a window seat, the jerky guy who’s glued to his phone, the little girl who’s flying alone and scared.) Bill’s seen them all before. Coming and going, going and coming. Same old, same old. Man, he needs a cigarette.

Once they get airborne and Bill’s taken care of that cigarette urge―air marshals have their ways―the flight takes a turn he doesn’t expect. He gets a text telling him that unless he arranges for $150 million to be deposited in a special account, something bad’s gonna happen.

What!? Today? Now? Ugh.

Suddenly, Bill’s years-old cop instincts take over. This can’t be a joke can it? (The Muslim guy in row three with the bag, the sweaty businessman back in coach.) They couldn’t be doing this, could they? The texts are coming in on a federally secured line. He’s gotta think. Think! (The flirty woman who was kissing on that guy in the terminal, the nervous-looking fellow with the glasses.) Who could it be? Where is this mysterious texter? Unless he can sort it out, the continually flowing texts promise that someone on this flight will be taken … er, killed every 20 minutes.

Positive Elements

For all of Bill’s struggles and failings, when his back’s against the fuselage, he feverishly tries to save the people onboard his flight. We learn of some of the anguish and loss in his life, and they make his heroic choices all the more poignant. He reaches out to help a young girl on a few occasions, literally snatching her from the jaws of death.

A passenger named Jen also steps into the breach, putting herself in danger to help the beleaguered marshal. Several other passengers make the right choice in the heat of a tense situation.

Spiritual Elements

One of the flight’s passengers is a Muslim, and a few other passengers eye him suspiciously because of his religious “look.”

Sexual Content

A young woman hugs and kisses her guy in the airport and then, later, the two are seen giggling and wriggling under a blanket onboard the plane. We see some ogling going on, and a joke about it. There’s a stray line about hooking up. Low-cut blouses reveal cleavage, and pictures on a phone show more of it.

Violent Content

This film purposely leaves the mystery behind the flight’s onboard violence hanging as long as possible. Even the protagonist, Bill, becomes a suspect for a time. As such, I’ll leave out most of the names and genders here as I detail the explosive episodes:

A neck is snapped during a ruthless close-quarters battle in the plane’s lavatory. One person is shot in the head, another in the shoulder. Two are poisoned. One is swallowed up by a fiery explosion. Bill manhandles a number of suspected passengers, slamming them into walls and seatbacks. Somebody’s grabbed by a group of men who bash away with a fire extinguisher. A flight attendant is pistol-whipped. A nose is broken. A hand is slashed with a knife. A gunfight blows out a window at altitude.

The plane dives violently a few times, sending unsecured passengers and attendants smashing up into the ceiling and thumping to the floor. Folks are bruised, scraped and left bloodied. A food cart is sent tumbling, striking a passenger. During a crash-landing, the plane’s side is rent, leaving a young girl dangling from the open hole.

Crude or Profane Language

One f-word and a half-dozen or more s-words join a handful of uses each of “h‑‑‑” and “a‑‑hole.” Jesus’ and God’s names are misused a dozen times total (God’s combined with “d‑‑n” six or so times). A crass slang reference to male genitalia (“d‑‑k”) is used to describe someone.

Drug and Alcohol Content

Bill smokes and drinks before and during his flight (taping off a bathroom sensor so the smoke alarm won’t sound). Jen also imbibes a mixed drink, a small airplane bottle of hard liquor and a large glass of Scotch. A passenger’s briefcase contains smuggled cocaine.

Other Negative Elements

The air marshal goes rogue at one point, disregarding his superior’s orders to pursue the few leads he has.

Ever since the 2008 pic Taken , actor Liam Neeson has displayed a “very particular set of skills” for films of this sort. He’s got the action-thriller acting chops that can keep an audience glued to the screen as his protagonists squint, growl and manhandle their way to a suspenseful conclusion. And those skills continue to serve the actor pretty well here in this hero’s tale of mystery, murder and terror at 40,000 feet.

Of course, as hero’s tales of mystery, murder and terror are wont to do, there’s more than just suspense and acting chops on this film’s cinematic manifest. There’s loose profanity that tumbles out of overhead bins. And there’s a plethora of low-flying thumps and bumps that result in gunshot wounds, broken bones and one particularly vicious-looking snapped neck.

After spending more than two decades touring, directing, writing and producing for Christian theater and radio (most recently for Adventures in Odyssey, which he still contributes to), Bob joined the Plugged In staff to help us focus more heavily on video games. He is also one of our primary movie reviewers.

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Common sense media reviewers.

Tense, formulaic, action-packed thriller set on a plane.

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

Keeping your cool under terrifying conditions can

Jen Summers carries herself like someone who truly

Violence is at the heart of the storyline. A plane

A couple makes out under a blanket. A man's ph

Some swearing, including "f--k," "s

A few labels are seen, including Samsung and Patek

One man smokes secretly in the bathroom of a plane

Parents need to know that Non-Stop is an action-packed thriller with plenty of edge-of-the-seat moments that may thrill teens. It could also scare off both young and old viewers from flying, especially if they're already skittish about it since the movie's so tense and realistic. The body count's…

Positive Messages

Keeping your cool under terrifying conditions can only help you. Asking for help also makes a big difference.

Positive Role Models

Jen Summers carries herself like someone who truly appreciates what's important in life, and she helps Bill Marks out of a terrible jam. Nancy, the flight attendant, is also a great example of a cool, calm, and collected person.

Violence & Scariness

Violence is at the heart of the storyline. A plane full of passengers is threatened by a terrorist traveling with them. People are shot, beaten, threatened with knives, shoved, kicked, you name it. Some of the brawls are so raw -- bones crunch, flesh rips, bodies slam.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

A couple makes out under a blanket. A man's phone reveals a series of photos of a woman's cleavage.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

Some swearing, including "f--k," "s--t," "dick," "a--hole" and "bulls--t."

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Products & Purchases

A few labels are seen, including Samsung and Patek Philippe.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

One man smokes secretly in the bathroom of a plane. He's later seen contemplating a stiff drink, but doesn't imbibe. A woman downs vodka, seeking liquid courage. A passenger is shown trying to take prescription meds to calm himself.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that Non-Stop is an action-packed thriller with plenty of edge-of-the-seat moments that may thrill teens. It could also scare off both young and old viewers from flying, especially if they're already skittish about it since the movie's so tense and realistic. The body count's pretty high, too, served up with a big dose of brutality and some gore, which may prove too intense for younger teens. Expect some swearing, including "f--k," "s--t," and "d--k," and some drinking, too; one character is an alcoholic. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

Where to Watch

Videos and photos.

Community Reviews

• Parents say (8)
• Kids say (39)

Based on 8 parent reviews

What's the Story?

Bill Marks ( Liam Neeson ) is an air marshal who's not a great flyer. Sometimes he relies on hard liquor to see him through but this is one flight where he shouldn't be drinking. A terrorist is on the loose, texting Bill with threats and promising a passenger will be killed every 20 minutes if his ransom demands aren't met. Bill's not sure who to trust. A female passenger ( Julianne Moore ) with seemingly nothing to lose may be the only one who believes that he isn't responsible for the chaos taking place at 30,000 feet.

Is It Any Good?

Liam Neeson is a great actor -- so much so that he elevates what is essentially forgettable material. It doesn't hurt that Julianne Moore's in the cast, too, though it really does feel as if the two are slumming it. You watch them give the movie their all and everyone pales in comparison. It's maddening. Maddening because the film does an excellent job heightening the tension. It feels almost as if the calamity is happening in real time. (If you're at all afraid of flying, prepare to be triggered.)

But although the plane on this NON-STOP flight hurtles at a breakneck pace, the film itself barely makes it to the arrival gate with momentum intact. A better explanation for all the villainy could have made sitting through all the turbulence worthwhile.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about the movie's fear factor. How does this film tap into the collective fear about acts of terrorism, especially on planes? Does it have a political agenda?

Does the movie deal with any stereotypes and, if so, how does it handle them? Does it promote them or break them down?

Movie Details

• In theaters : February 28, 2014
• On DVD or streaming : June 10, 2014
• Cast : Liam Neeson , Julianne Moore
• Director : Jaume Collet-Serra
• Inclusion Information : Female actors
• Studio : Universal Pictures
• Genre : Thriller
• Run time : 107 minutes
• MPAA rating : PG-13
• MPAA explanation : intense sequences of action and violence, some language, sensuality and drug references
• Last updated : May 15, 2024

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Non-Stop Review

28 Feb 2014

110 minutes

The fact that Liam Neeson has become an action-flick staple is fairly amazing, given the fact he’s rarely broken into a jog on screen, let alone delivered a spinning wushu attack. But where Taken at least gave him some hard-boiled one-liners as compensation, the sub-Hitchcockian, stunt-sparse Non-Stop (rarely has a film title been so inaccurate) makes it impossible for even the stolid Neeson to quicken pulses.

An undercover air marshal by the name of Bill Marks — presumably Mark Bills was already taken — he’s introduced sitting in a parked car outside an airport, sipping whisky. “I hate flying,” he growls. “The lines. The crowds. The delays.” Two hours later, you’ll likely be sharing his aviophobia. A well-made thriller can squeeze plenty of suspense-juice out of a single, claustrophobic location. A shonky one can fast become interminable. Almost entirely set aboard an “Aqualantic” jet, Non-Stop is scuppered by its assortment of deeply dull characters — including a jockish NYPD cop (Corey Stoll), a nervous flier (Julianne Moore) and a stewardess (12 Years A Slave’s Lupita Nyong’o, here stuck with 12 Words A Role) — plus the fact that, as a whodunnit, it’s fatally flawed.

In lieu of interrogations, chases and the like, the vast majority of the film is comprised of Neeson tapping text messages into a mobile phone, as he’s taunted by a shadowy adversary. Occasionally the texting happens in a toilet; sometimes there’s a typo and he has to tap back and fix it. None of this makes the endless SMS-ing any more exciting. To make matters worse, the shrill alert noise the hero’s phone makes EVERY TIME he gets a message becomes so maddening that it soon becomes tempting to root for the killer instead.

Spanish director Jaume Collet-Serra, who made the impressive Orphan but also House Of Wax and rubbish Neeson vehicle Unknown, tries to inject energy with a fist-fight and a last-minute splurge of CGI. But Non-Stop is weak sauce, a cheapie snoozer that not even heavyweights like Neeson and Moore can save. And the solution to the mystery, when it finally comes, is so dotty and unguessable, it might drive you to whisky yourself.

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‘Challengers’ and That Ending: Our Critics Have Thoughts

The tennis movie comes to an abrupt stop midmatch, so we don’t know who won. Does that matter?

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By Wesley Morris and Alissa Wilkinson

The relationships in “ Challengers ” are complicated. Patrick (Josh O’Connor) and Art (Mike Faist) were close pals on the juniors tennis circuit when they met Tashi (Zendaya), a phenom. As the years pass and they become entangled in on-court rivalry and off-court sexual tensions, the film builds to a vicious challenger-circuit match between Art, now a top-ranked pro with a confidence problem, and Patrick, sleeping in his car between tournaments. In the stands is Art’s wife and Patrick’s ex, Tashi, who turned to coaching after an injury cut short her career. The film ends abruptly, the outcome of the match unclear — and that has been the subject of much discussion online. So we asked our critic at large Wesley Morris and our movie critic Alissa Wilkinson to weigh in. Caution: Spoilers ahead.

WESLEY MORRIS Alissa, we’re here to discuss the final moments of “Challengers,” and in order to do that, I’m committing a big personal no-no and talking about a movie that people have had only two weeks to see. Sometimes it takes me — a culture professional — a while to catch up, so I’d imagine other folks might appreciate some distance between opening weekend and the instant media chatterboxes start breaking down the dismount. I also understand that’s a very 1988 flavor of film discourse and that a judge would overrule me.

So: People are confused about this ending? Or intrigued? Either way, I ask: Which part? The storm of final shots (final camera shots) that boot us out of the theater midmatch? Or the final encounter between Tashi and Patrick, which I refuse to ruin? Or her final glimpse, on match eve, of a sleeping Art?

If we’re talking about that shot storm, which goes down in a third-set tiebreaker between Patrick and Art, is it so intriguing that it warrants a conversation? There’s one image of Patrick crouching and another of Art aloft, mid-slam, that I’ll always remember. What follows? Eh. I don’t know who these characters are, who they’re supposed to be, or what they might want, even secretly. So I didn’t care what happens after this match.

If anything concerned me, it was the fact that this finale takes place in the middle (or the end, I suppose) of the third point of the tiebreaker, which has at least four or five more points to go. Is caring who wins the match gauche? Is it safe to assume that, based on the number of warnings and penalties the exasperated chair umpire (Darnell Appling) Frisbees out, whatever’s happening in that final scene is the end of the match anyway, because one of these guys is getting ejected? Did I just wind up re-enacting what people are doing with this movie anyway and express genuine intrigue?

ALISSA WILKINSON I also wondered what the issue was when I discovered people were asking about the ending. In fact, honestly, I doubted they were, until I dutifully went back to see the movie with my husband. At the end, the guy sitting next to him leaned over and said, “What happened?”

The actual question, I believe, is who won the match? And the answer, of course, is we don’t know. As you note, the director, Luca Guadagnino, ends the film with points left in the balance, and the real “winner” of the New Rochelle Challenger presented by Phil’s Tiretown is simply left to the imagination. For me, the answer is “nobody,” because here’s a how a movie is supposed to work: When it ends, it’s over. The characters cease to exist, and the story ends where it does on purpose. But I think factors like our endless sequel culture and our need to assign value to characters so we can decide which one we’re rooting for makes us want to know.

Plus, I mean, it’s intentionally provocative — as the cast and Guadagnino told our colleague Kyle Buchanan , they’re happy that it’s ambiguous. Open-ended finales let us argue about what really happened and thus, I think, tend to keep a cultural artifact alive for a long time. (We’re still arguing about the end of “The Sopranos.”)

To be honest, I feel like I have a pretty good handle on what these characters want (maybe because I went back and saw it again!). Art wants Tashi, and he wants to rest. Patrick also wants Tashi, and he wants Art, too, but he also wants to crush them both a little, so that he feels like he’s reintegrated into their relationship. And Tashi just wants to win at tennis, because to her that is a relationship. That is love. She says as much the night they all first meet.

I think I fall on the side that Tashi won the match, because the scream of “Come on !” she lets out just before she smiles is precisely the same scream she lets out when she was winning the junior U.S. Open all those years earlier. But I think you’re also right, and that whatever happens right there at the end will result in expulsion, and probably it doesn’t matter. The whole point was for Art to get his groove back and Patrick to feel like he’s back in the game — that is, the three-way relationship — and they got that, too.

Between us, though, you’re the tennis expert. Does that make any sense?

MORRIS When you put it that way, yes. I just didn’t care about these people as people. The stakes are among the strangest I’ve ever seen in a movie. Its structure is time divided by tennis. The two used to be oil and water (a match could last days). Guadagnino and the screenwriter Justin Kuritzkes impose a temporal framework. Each of the three sets is a chapter. The tiebreak is an epilogue. During all of it, the film moves through the various pasts of the Tashi-Patrick-Art connection. (Tashickart, anyone?) This, to me, was too clever. Sure, the experience of disorientation worked. But why was any disorientation necessary? Why should it matter?

As tennis, this is a movie about whether Patrick can clean up his act to get back to the major tournaments — the U.S. Open, namely. Art’s in the main draw of the Open no matter what. But is that what he wants, to win more majors? Or does he want to win because Tashi wants him to? This is not a plot that can resolve that. But it also isn’t a movie that can resolve anything for itself. It doesn’t know what it wants. Tennis is a symbol (for sex) and a pretext (for relationships), but the movie does what tennis can’t: ends in a draw. That’s untenable.

I wonder if Guadagnino is the right director for this movie and not, hypothetically, James L. Brooks or Ron Shelton or Frank Oz, Americans whose major contributions to American culture ended in the previous century, yes. But I’m thinking out loud. With these guys, you’d lose the ridiculous opera of that ending, and none of them would have gone with the lewd-aerobics thrusting all over Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross’s score. Instead, you’d get what some of their movies — “Broadcast News” or “Bull Durham” or “Dirty Rotten Scoundrels,” respectively — thrived on: character studies in which vocation enlivens personality. That’s true enough in “Challengers” that it brings these other movies to mind. But “Challengers” never struck me first as a film about tennis as vocation.

It’s such a good, basic idea. But Guadagnino complicates things in the wrong directions. He makes the tennis cutthroat and the physical intimacy tenuous. This is a sex movie with barely any sex and an eroticism whose bud never blooms. Instead, it toys with everybody, namely us. Guadagnino gave us “ I Am Love ” and “ Call Me by Your Name ” and a so-terrible-it’s-fantastic remake of Dario Argento’s “ Suspiria .” He’s foremost an Italian sensualist — an oralist, really — whose dabbling in cannibalism earned the “us” in “menus” (see “Bones and All”).

He seems flummoxed by a place as comfortably devoid of Michelin-star bait as New Rochelle (though it often looks eerily like Boston). Of course, as long as these people have something suggestive to eat (eggs, bananas, bagel sandwiches, churros, a mouth), we’re in good shape. And even then, the idea that such an extreme palate has made a film featuring both a Dunkin’ Donuts meal and its erstwhile logo feels less like camp and more like tragicomedy.

The movie doesn’t want to be labeled — as gay, bi or even libidinal. And in that sense what really comes to mind here is Alfonso Cuarón’s “Y Tu Mamá También,” which was also about what happens when a sexy woman exposes a nascent homoerotic bond. Cuarón is just as ambivalent as Guadagnino about where things stand by the end. But when that movie ended, I did feel that some souls were searched. Somehow all I hear in the far more ridiculous “Challengers” finale is nervous laughter.

WILKINSON There are a lot of logos and sponsorships in this movie, not just Dunkin’ Donuts: Adidas and Uniqlo and those watch and car ads … but then again, there are an awful lot of logos in sports.

I think what I so thoroughly enjoyed about this movie is exactly the stuff that irritated you — that it feels like a floppy, whirly mess that doesn’t want to say anything other than, man, aren’t these people gorgeous and weird. As a person who half-watches most sports, that feels pretty well aligned with professional sports as an enterprise, though that might get me a lot of hate mail. It’s all just sweat and grinding for its own sake and nothing more — any attempt to philosophize it always strikes me as vaguely goofy, and that is why it’s so vital to our cultural health, I think.

But I think that points back to the ending: It’s unsatisfying, and that’s not a mistake. You aren’t supposed to “know” what happened (even if, in an actual match, you definitely should). For me, it locks into something I think about a lot this time of year — baseball is more or less the sport I watch — which is that it’s Sisyphean, that even if you win it all this year, it just starts over again next year. Leaving the match unfinished is sort of like leaving the characters suspended there forever, looping and pinging back and forth, the results always up for grabs.

The most Sisyphean thing about my life, on the other hand, is the awards season; this movie was originally slated to open the Venice Film Festival last fall, which probably means it would have been trapped in Oscar discourse pretty fast. Flung out into the spring movie calendar, the whole thing takes on a different tenor, I think.

MORRIS I’m with you. Here we have a movie based on an original script opening in April that isn’t out sniffing around for Oscars. It’s got a starry-ish cast and is a cultural and box office hit. The thing about stakes I should’ve mentioned earlier is that, going in, they were low for me. You like this movie much more than I do, Alissa, but I do like it. It’s got this fragrant semi- or even anti-seriousness, a substance many of the movies I love secrete. I’m grateful for “Challengers” that way. It’s the kind of movie a lot of us complain is missing from our current moviegoing diets — mid-tier, mid-budget, “middlebrow” — the kind of movie that makes, solidifies and tests stardom; the kind of movie that, were it a TV show, our colleague James Poniewozik might aptly identify as mid . Mid was what made American movies what they were. Now, one art form’s drought is another’s deluge.

If Zendaya’s screen-acting career lasts, this stretch, which includes that second “Dune” installment, will likely be decisive when we look back. We actually want to see her act — maybe even with Faist and O’Connor, whose smirky, ratty understanding of bad-boy swagger, insecurity and disrespect is exciting. His performance embodies something you identified earlier that I appreciate about “Challengers,” which is the repetitive, hothouse nature of all sports.

You and I are having this conversation in the middle of what for certain people is a spring bonanza — early-season baseball, midseason golf, clay-court tennis, hockey and basketball playoffs, assorted drafts, the culmination of the Champions League. If sports are vital to our cultural health, it could be because, as you surmise, they’re philosophy-proof. But also perhaps because they’re philosophy-ridden: a proving ground and microcosm of so much that defines us as a species — how do we collaborate, strategize, obey, perceive, communicate, conform, transcend, sacrifice, strive, pay attention (but not too much attention), fail, recover, lose again, compete; how do we believe in each other and in ourselves. And sometimes — usually, in a few sports — the avatars within that microcosm are gorgeous and weird.

Tennis fascinates because, like boxing and the martial arts, it’s always only ever the two of you out there, figuring yourselves out in front of an audience by testing each other. But it’s never enough, in sports, to be talented. You need some combination of these other traits. You need some hunger. Which, again, is a very Guadagnino mode of being.

If anything compelled me about that ending, it’s probably that. Tashi knows what it takes to win. Because she can no longer win for herself, she now relies on these avatars to sate her lust for competition. I’m just restating your observation, Alissa, but that last shot is these two guys proving to her that they want it. Whatever that “it” turns out to be. The proof, the hunger is what turns her on.

Wesley Morris is a Times critic who writes about art and popular culture. More about Wesley Morris

Alissa Wilkinson is a Times movie critic. She’s been writing about movies since 2005. More about Alissa Wilkinson

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