Starring: Sam Worthington, Elizabeth Banks, Jamie Bell, Anthony Mackie, Génesis Rodríguez, Ed Harris
Director: Asger Leth
Genre: Psychological Thriller, Crime, Action
Rating: C+
I suspect I enjoyed this movie a lot more than I should have. By which I mean, I enjoyed this movie when I realize that it wasn't really all that good. It's fun and the action is good and the tension is definitely there - although, I'm absolutely terrified of heights, which I suspect played a lot into that. This movie really freaked me out, but I'm like that.
Man on a Ledge follows Nick Cassidy (Worthington), a former cop and an escaped convict. He was imprisoned for stealing a $40 million diamond from David Englander (Harris), which he swears he did not do. At the start of Ledge Nick checks into the Roosevelt Hotel under a false name, goes to his room on the 21st floor, and steps out onto the ledge. When negotiators arrive, he insists that he will only talk to negotiator Lydia Mercer (Banks), a negotiator who is on leave of absence following a failed negotiation leading to the suicide of a policeman a month earlier. Unbeknownst to the police, while Nick is distracting them his brother Joey (Bell) and Joey's girlriend Angie (Rodríguez) are on the building across the street, planning on breaking into Englander's vault to prove Nick's innocence.
So... yeah. The plot is a bit much, and at no point does it enter into believe-ability. From how he escapes from prison to the whole heist, and the general plan to clear his name, is just all over the top. It's just... yeah. It's kind of all over the place. I think the idea in general was an interesting one, but the way they did it was a bit preposterous and just too much. You have to suspend your disbelief a lot in order to follow it, although I will grant that it does play in rather nicely to the theme of "corrupt cop" that movies tend to like.
I think the thing that makes this movie really work for me, however, is the dramatic tension between Banks and Worthington. Regardless of how believable the rest of the film is, I really believed her character. Her motivations were real, her struggles were real. She really wanted to help him, whoever he might have been. I believed that, although I think it went too extreme at the en. The whole "corrupt cop" plot didn't work well and kind of jeopardized the loveability of Banks' character.
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