Director: Asger Leth
Cast: Sam Worthington, Elizabeth Banks, Anthony Mackie, Jamie Bell, Ed Harris, Genesis Rodriguez
Rating: (M)
1 star (out of 5)
If you are thinking that sort of premise alone is going to struggle to sustain an audience's interest through 100 minutes, you'd be right. So, what the film-makers do is embellish the plot with a roll call of cliched characters and farcical plot twists.
Sam Worthington stars as Nick Cassidy, a former New York cop who has an axe to grind with corrupt businessman David Englander (Ed Harris). From the moment Cassidy casually opens a top-floor hotel window and steps out on to the concrete ledge, it's apparent that Man On A Ledge really doesn't have a lot of regard for the intellect of its audience.
That's just the half of it. While Nick feigns vertigo as flirtatious psychologist Lydia Mercer (Elizabeth Banks) tries to seduce him down, his brother Joey (Jamie Bell) is trying to steal a massive diamond from Englander's vault. This only provides another chance for the script-writers to throw in a sequence that looks like it stepped straight off a Victoria's Secret catwalk show. Joey's girlfriend Angie (Genesis Rodriguez) not only happens to be a knockout in the looks department, she curiously needs to strip down to her underwear as part of the heist process. Genius.
It's hard going making it to the end, especially once you have figured out within the first 15 minutes how it will all shake down. The only ambiguity is wondering how Ed Harris, Edward Burns and Kyra Sedgwick agreed to be part of this mess. Come on Nick, hurry up and jump.
Best thing: The credit sequence.
Worst thing: The absurd characterisation.
See it with: Extremely low expectations.
- By Mark Orton
