Non-Stop - 2 1/2 smiles

Liam Neeson’s skill as an actor lends credibility to his action movies even when the script piles implausibility upon implausibility. “Non-Stop” finds Neeson fighting his way through the ludicrousness of an airplane-hijacking thriller, which exploits our fears of post-9/11 travel. This time out, Neeson plays Bills Marks, a U.S. air marshal assigned to a New York-to-London flight, undercover, of course, who heads straight to the lavatory once the jetliner is aloft – to gulp whiskey and smoke a cigarette (duct tape over the smoke detector). Back in business class, he chats up a neighbor, a frequent flier played by Julianne Moore. And then the text messages start coming: someone on the plane knows who he is and is demanding $150 million, or else he, or she?, will start killing passengers, one every 20 minutes. The catch is that all signs point to Bill himself as the hijacker. The account the money must be sent to turns out to be his. But he’s the innocent one, wrongly suspected and trapped 35,000 feet in the air. Bill must find the real perp and save a planeload of travelers.

Spanish director Jaume Collet-Serra paints everyone as a suspect. Is it the mystery woman (Moore) or New York cop (Corey Stoll) with the surly attitude? Perhaps it’s the flight attendant (Michelle Dockery) or the bookish teacher (Scoot McNairy). Eventually, it’s best to stop trying to figure anything out and just let the silliness roll. And at the end, Collet-Serra tries to throw a political twist into the mix that really doesn’t make any sense. If you’re willing to suspend a lot of disbelief because you’re a Neeson fan, then “Non-Stop” is the movie for you. 4/8/14