Well, it’s Hollywood we’re talking about here. Take a wild guess.
In case I haven’t spoiled it for you already — and frankly, I don’t care if I have — here’s the obligatory warning:
SPOILERS AHEAD
A reader who wishes to remain anonymous has seen an advance screening of the upcoming action movie Non-Stop, starring Liam Neeson and his hairpiece, and was angered and disgusted by it. This reader has passed along a quick plot summary:
Liam Neeson is an Air Marshal on a 6-hour flight to London. He begins to get text messages from a person on the plane threatening to kill someone every 20 minutes unless $150 million is sent to a bank account–which we soon learn is in the name of Liam Neeson’s character. As the plot goes on, we have to suspect that Liam’s alcoholic character has either gone schizo, or we’re just in a bad movie with lots of plot holes. About 30 minutes in, we confirm that the killer(s) are real. Then it becomes increasingly obvious that the whole idea behind the weird hijacking is to frame Neeson’s character.
The flight becomes a breaking news story about the Air Marshall turned terrorist. Meanwhile, any right-minded moviegoer is really hoping this turns out to be a Muslim plot. Of course, it can’t be. Neeson’s character discovers there’s an actual bomb on the plane, and deduces the passenger(s) is/are on a suicide mission.
Here’s the really creepy part: Yes, the terrorist plot is courtesy of two Americans who want to prove that airline security is a joke, and create a more paranoid and fascist TSA to protect the people. Yes, they are former military personnel. Yes, one of them joined the military because of 9/11 and became disillusioned by the meaningless war. And–in the movie’s sole unexpected twist–that guy is the son of a person who died on 9/11.
Liam Neeson may have a very particular set of skills, but lately his knack for picking movie roles has gotten a bit rusty.
So, 12 years on, it’s finally considered okay to turn a 9/11 survivor into a movie villain. A plane hijacker, no less.
I guess it was inevitable. You can’t make a Muslim the bad guy, because that’s racist. Why not make it a victim of Muslim terrorists? Who’d be expecting that? How edgy and daring. Move over, Rod Serling!
Speaking only for myself, I’d been planning to see this movie. Now I won’t. Ever.
According to Wikipedia, this masterpiece was actually filmed in NYC. Did the director, Jaume Collet-Serra, tell any of the crew who the bad guy was before they filmed that scene? Did he even consider it? Would it have mattered?
Up yours, Universal Studios.