Flying the unfriendly skies

Liam Neeson and Peter Bedood have a bad trip

Liam Neeson is enjoying a late-career streak as an accented version of what Harrison Ford should be: an internationally famous and weathered ass-kicker. Indiana Jones grumps his way through stuff like “Ender’s Game” while Oscar Schindler elevates every check cashing gig he takes.

“You’re about to be ‘Taken’” is kind of a joke line at this point, but Neeson doesn’t deliver it that way for a millisecond and never will, no matter how many of those flicks he signs up for. Whether playing a Scottish Bronson, a noble Jedi, or even Lion Jesus, Liam Neeson imbues whatever mythical character he plays with personal gravitas and a commanding physical presence. “The Grey” is like watching a documentary about Neeson dick-punching an entire pack of wolves into oblivion.

In “Non-Stop,” in wide release Friday, Feb. 28, Neeson plays Bill Marks, a troubled air marshal who’s booked on a flight to London. I can’t remember why he was going to London, but that clearly doesn’t matter. Marks is troubled because whenever he isn’t breaking carbon life forms down into more manageable chunks, he gets depressed. Fired from the police force after his daughter died of cancer, Marks became an alcoholic, thus ending his marriage. Marks washed up at the TSA because, obvs, they’ll hire anyone (there’s some ham-fisted commentary about airline security late in the film; a bad move since it distracts from Neeson choking dudes out and senselessly terrorizing the passengers).

After run-ins with what seem like your standard-issue group of annoying travelers who deserve what’s eventually coming to them, Marks finds himself seated next to Jen Summers (Julianne Moore). After a bit of getting-to-know-you chitchat, where we learn Marks has a fear of airplane take-offs that disappears once he’s airborne (shouldn’t he be more worried about the landing?), Marks receives a text message from an unknown fellow passenger. The gist: Hey Bill, give me 150 million bucks or I start killing random people on this plane every 20 minutes.

Of course, the killer has every angle worked out, using the clueless Marks to fulfill the promised deaths, in neat, 20-minute intervals. The ransom money winds up being wired to an account in Marks’ name, which turns his TSA overlords against him. He’s always the guy who seems unhinged as he stalks the aisles looking for his man, only to wind up looking responsible for the next casualty. He keeps falling for it such that, hilariously, almost everyone thinks he’s the terrorist, while the real terrorist relentlessly trolls him via text for being such a predictable schmuck.

So Marks must prove his innocence while saving the ungrateful passengers and pummeling the actual bad guy into dust for making him look like an inept dildo.

Directing from a script by a trio of television writers, Jaume Collet-Serra reunites with Neeson after the similarly high-concept “Unknown,” and the results here similarly uneven. As the film begins, it manages to achieve a sense of tension, due mostly to Neeson looking cagey and like he’ll headbutt anyone on the six-hour transatlantic flight. But it doesn’t take long for that tension to be subverted by a story with more red herrings than a bait store, growing more unlikely and strained as “Non-Stop” navigates its way around plot holes you could fly the fucking plane through. At least the pace of the film doesn’t drag, despite the calculated artifice of the plot. Serra manages a certain sense of claustrophobia with the setting.

But the script subverts the characters, putting them on obvious narrative rails of questionable logic, and ultimately squanders what is an otherwise fine cast doing good work. Neeson is belting it to the cheap seats while Moore brings along her knack for being utterly engaging no matter what she’s in. Nate Parker, as a tech-savvy passenger, shines rather brightly. And that’s not even counting newly bestowed Oscar-winner Lupita Nyong’o as a flight attendant, who doubts Neeson (big mistake), and Shea Wigham in his ongoing quest to be in every movie made in the last two years.

It’s not terrible. It’s not even really technically bad. But the next stop for “Non-Stop” is endless rotation on FX next summer. I’ll probably keep channel surfing.

 It’s something of a given for Tulsa’s most talented to migrate west to make movies and get noticed. Local actor and comedian (and writer and illustrator and, yeah, he’s talented) Peter Bedgood made that trek. In the process he reunited with his friend, collaborator and “Chillicothe” writer/director Todd Edwards, to make the 2010 road trip comedy, “Jeffie Was Here.”

Bedgood plays Alan Mangold, a frustrated novelist and lit professor who lives in a Blues Brother’s-esque, letterbox apartment, complete with tumultuous el trains and a fold-out bed that doubles as a shower. With him is his long-time girlfriend, Amanda (Alexis Raben). She’s a budding photographer; he is struggling to finish his first novel. Money is always an issue to the anal-retentive Alan, and the last thing he needs are any unexpected expenses.

Those arrive with a phone call from the Left Coast: his beloved “nana” has died. Alan, his interest piqued at the possible inheritance, must drive across the country, with Amanda in tow, to attend the funeral and, possibly, score a generous payday. They decide to place an ad for a carpool to get help with gas. Enter Jeffie, a wheelchair-bound nerd with no filter or social skills, who’s also utterly out of his mind.

Thus begins a transcontinental war of wills as Jeffie subjects the strained couple to his militant eco-activism and shitty self-produced demo album (on cassette or CD), while forcing Alan and Amanda are forced to examine the future of their relationship and their notions of family, inadvertently changing their lives, though generally not for the better.

As a comedy, “Jeffie Was Here” doesn’t reinvent the wheel, but it does score some decent laughs, largely due to Bedgood’s understated, straight-man delivery. Edwards, co-starring as Jeffie, plays a character who should be funnier on paper, though he becomes more endearing as the story unfolds, revealing his deeper motives. Alexis Raben holds her own with some solid comedic timing.

Visually, “Jeffie Was Here” hits all the right beats, thanks to cinematographer Jeff McCutcheon, and it also enjoys an inventive soundtrack due largely to Edwards’ composing talents, even on Jeffie’s embarrassingly charming demo songs. The script, by Edwards and Bedgood, is adeptly written, nodding to road-movie tropes, playfully satirizing hippie misfits, academia, and nerd culture while crafting a sympathetic relationship between Alan and Amanda. The tone can be a bit uneven, but the chemistry between Bedgood and Raben makes the dramatic moments feel believable, and their relationship with Jeffie all the more absurd. Cameos from Ken Marino and Steve Little from “Eastbound and Down” (before Kenny Powers was even a thing) provide even more amusement.

“Jeffie Was Here” is an amiable comedy from two filmmakers who need to continue their trip. Here’s hoping the whims of fate allow them to do so. “Jeffie Was Here” is available for rent or purchase on iTunes.