johnlink ranks MAN ON A LEDGE (2012)
Sam Worthington does it for me as an action star. He doesn’t always pick the best movies, but he is good enough to make some generic stuff a little better. Really though, any small gimmicky suspense film based around a simple premise (like, say, a man threatens to jump off a building to buy time for a theft) is something I will flock to.
I watched MAN ON A LEDGE (2012) on 7.10.13. It was my first viewing of the film.
This is a carefully drawn up movie, which isn’t always a good thing. It is tight, and it is certainly suspenseful. The movie asks the audience to really stretch their suspension of disbelief. The ability to enjoy this movie, then, is dependent on any given person’s willingness to stretch.
Me? I don’t mind it. I can compartmentalize the absurdities of the movie enough to enjoy it. When Nick (Sam Worthington) climbs out on the ledge everything is fine. When shamed negotiator Lydia (Elizabeth Banks) tries to talk him down I can go along. I am even in when Joey (Jamie Bell) and Angie (Genesis Rodriguez) start the heist portion of this movie. The parts which stretch me involve the actual item being stolen itself, the ability of the protagonists to know exactly what the antagonists (led by Ed Harris) are going to do, and a deus ex machina intervention to tie this movie up in a nice little bow.
But along the way it is fun, suspenseful, and fairly simple. There isn’t much depth to this movie. There isn’t a lot from a filmmaking perspective which is done to enhance the experience. What you see is what you get. For me, what I got was a good ride. A somewhat forgettable movie, but enjoyable during the viewing nonetheless.
The cast is not bad. I like the relationship built by Worthington and Banks. I like the banter of Bell and Rodriguez. I like the participation of Ed Harris and Anthony Mackie as Nick’s former partner. Kyra Sedgwick is absolutely wasted in this as a reporter, a role which could literally have been played by anybody (though her cameraman was played by a guy in my fantasy football league, which is nice). They setup a DIE HARD type scenario with a cop/reporter rivalry, but it never pays off even a little bit. Anyone who knows William Sadler will know he isn’t involved in this movie just to play a Valet, so his casting gives something away which didn’t need to be. They amassed a bunch of mid-level stars and excellent character actors for this movie (I never has reason to mention Ed Burns as a cop) even if they didn’t have much to do with many of them.
So, anyway, worth seeing once. Entertaining for sure. Nothing life changing to be found here, but you should have a good time.
SCORES
FILM: 3; MOVIE: 8; ACTING: 5; WRITING: 4
3+8+5+4+0= 20
FINAL SCORE: 5
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