I haven’t been on a plane in 3 years (not long enough if you ask me), but a film like Non-Stop doesn’t help getting on a plane any easier. The only upside is a nicely done thriller out of it.

Bill (Liam Neeson) is an Air Marshall who hasn’t had the perfect life, as booze and cigarettes now seem to take higher priority than anything else. Still, he cares about the safety of people on planes and continues to do his job to the best of his abilities. But what’s supposed to be a normal flight goes haywire when Bill begins to get text messages from someone on the plane threatening to kill people every 20 minutes unless that person is given $150 million. The clock is ticking and it seems Bill has a first class problem on his hands as things soon get out of control.

I kind of like that Liam Neeson has gotten this kind of success late in his career doing entertaining thrillers. A few (namely Taken 2) have been duds, but Non-Stop certainly isn’t one of those. Planes by their nature are separated from society, as they zoom around miles above our heads. This kind of separation heightens every movement somebody makes aboard this flight just dripping in tension, though luckily Liam Neeson is just the kind of person to take care of such tension. In his leading role, Neeson plays Bill with commanding authority that never wavers even as many of the passengers of the plane begin to distrust him. Although Bill’s personality is a little darker than that of the squeaky-clean dad from the Taken films, it still allows Neeson to do what he does best; say imposing things while punching people in the coolest way possible.

Thankfully, even with the awesomeness of Neeson a major part of the film, things aren’t just constant violence, with the movie more than content to let the paranoia of the situation simmer until it’s pulse pounding finish. Admittedly, this is where the film begins to slip up, as the film has to bend over backwards in order to make anything that occurs in the last 15 minutes remotely plausible. Still, there’s enough exciting imagery even in these moments to not let such flaws impact the rest of the films terrificness.

The cast of the film is larger than you might expect, with every archetype aboard this plane in order to confound the audience as to who could be behind all the terror. Aside from Neeson’s formidable lead role, the best actor of the bunch is Julianne Moore as a woman who likes to sit by the window on planes and lends some humorous moments to the affair. The rest of the cast is serviceable enough, though it is funny to see Oscar nominee Lupita Nyong’O in here as a flight attendant. Non-Stop delivers on its potential and turns out to be a fun thriller, one full of vintage Neeson action and thrills.