Generally speaking I like Liam Neeson so when a movie comes out with him in it I generally get it without too many questions asked. It has been a somewhat varied experience. This one is somewhere in the middle of the range I would say. I did indeed have higher hopes for it.
The basic story is quite good but I never really felt very thrilled about the implementation and I more often than not felt frustrated by the various jerks not believing Bill and Bill’s clumsy attempt at convincing people that he was a good guy not to mention controlling the passages. For being an air marshal Bill did not seem to be very good at it. I known he was supposed to be a former drunk but still…
It is still a decent enough movie though which rolls on at a reasonably decent pace. I never really felt compelled to pick up my tablet and start to read something while waiting for the boring parts to pass as have happened with a few other movies. Well, at least not very often. It is not really an action movie though and the scene at the poster is pretty much the only high-octane action scene in the entire movie which was also a bit disappointing. Sure, there are some quite good fights between Bill and various other characters but I would still put this movie more in the thriller genre than in the action one.
The media jerks and the way people seemed to control things outside, or rather not control things, the plane was also really frustrating. I would really have sued the arses of those media dicks afterwards given how they downright slandered both Bill and air marshals in general without any real proof. What happened with innocent until proven guilty. Oh, yeah right, I forgot, that has no meaning to todays media people.
Sadly enough the thriller part never got that thrilling either. I feel this is due to the rather clumsy way that Bill went about things most of the time. He never really gave a professional appearance. This goes for the cop that happened to be on the plane as well by the way. I felt he was really behaving just like some scared member of a mob rather than a trained professional. When the villain was finally exposed and the reasons for the events where explained. Well, let us just say that I went “meh” at that point. On the good side Liam Neeson did make a rather good performance given the kind of script he had to work with.
On the whole it is an okay movie though which is worthwhile to watch but, as I wrote, I had my hopes set a notch higher.
Second viewing of this and only works because of Liam Neeson. Despite seeing on the news that the plane was being hijacked, he would get any help from anybody given he had been acting like a crazy man throughout the film. Also the ending was a bit much with the villains' motivations. Still, liked it well enough. **3.5/5**
