The recipe seems so amazing that I can't believe we're seeing it for the first time. The middle-aged action hero brings his "specific set of skills" to the airspace over the Atlantic Ocean in "Non-Stop," a tense, fun thriller that suffers from many of the maladies that often befall tense, fun thrillers. But every blemish is forgiven, because Liam Neeson is awesome, and my review can probably end there. The thing about intricate, twisting plots is that while they maintain a high level of interest, they usually can't be unwrapped in a way altogether satisfying or sensible. You'll probably feel that way when this movie ends, that the whole motivation behind the complex scheme to terrorize an international flight seems a little weak. Since we've seen plenty of thrillers set on airplanes before, the plot needs to introduce something new and ridiculous to hold our interest. For three-fourths of the way, that's exactly what this does. Bill Marks (Neeson) is an air marshal (we know this from the trailer very clearly, so the film's slow reveal of that information seems a bit unnecessary) on a flight from New York to London. He seems to be in a bad place, carefully depositing alcohol into his coffee before walking into the airport.

But his malaise turns into distress once the flight is in midair, when he receives text messages over a secure network claiming one person on board the plane will die every 20 minutes unless $150 million gets transferred into a specific bank account. Here begins the whodunit. We've met several faces on the plane, and many could fit the bill of our extortionist. The good films of this variety invite us to study every detail, wondering whether a piece of information is significant or a red herring. The really good films of this variety leave open the possibility that even our protagonist is the bad guy, and that's certainly the case here, given Bill's troubled past. Even the circumstances surrounding the deaths are strange enough to consider just how it's all being orchestrated. The best whodunits don't rely on coincidences and leaps in logic to execute their master plan, and unfortunately, "Non-Stop" has plenty of those. But, as I said, the most complex plots often don't have simple escapes. Passengers begin to get word of newscasts on the ground identifying Bill as a terrorist who has hijacked the plane, and the bank account has been listed in his own name. It's either a genius plot, a vast conspiracy or Bill is not who he claims to be, and the why is just as puzzling as the who. How it all unfolds is kind of weak, but I'm still saying it was a fun ride, even if there was a bumpy landing. There's not much in terms of character development here, but then again, if you expected complex characters with nuanced motivations, you walked into the wrong theater. It's Liam Neeson and a bunch of people on a plane, including Julianne Moore, who seems a little too unconcerned and flirty for someone on a plane in peril. But whatever; people will have fun with this.