January 26th, 2012 
admin Movie review: ‘Man on a Ledge’ tosses aside all good sense – Appleton Post Crescent
“Man on a Ledge” offers an intriguing premise of revenge and redemption, but ultimately asks its audience to take too many leaps.
Pun intended. Groaner though it may be, it’s still more clever than some of the jaw-dropping silliness in director Asger Leth’s film. Maybe it’s Leth’s fault. Or maybe it’s the fault of screenwriter Pablo F. Fenjves.
Don’t blame Sam Worthington, who tries gamely to bring life to the title character. And Elizabeth Banks is in there swinging, as well. Nice efforts, but they’re let down by a script that can’t support its own far-fetched ideas.
Nick Cassidy (Worthington) checks into a swank hotel in New York one day, has a nice meal and climbs out onto the ledge several stories above the street. This draws a crowd, naturally, armed with cell phone cameras, screaming either in horror or with encouragement to jump. You know, the usual.
But not quite. There is something decidedly unusual about Cassidy and his situation. He demands to see Lydia Mercer (Elizabeth Banks), a police negotiator with a checkered past. Which, it turns out, Cassidy has, as well. As Leth goes back and forth in time, we learn that Cassidy is a disgraced police officer himself, in prison for — of course — a crime he did not commit. Movie prisons are full of such people; in Cassidy’s case, he was convicted of stealing a diamond from all-around-jerk and rich guy David Englander (Ed Harris, chewing scenery like he’s famished).
Cassidy orchestrates an escape, leading to the ledge, where we learn that his threats to jump are maybe not what they seem. A side story involving his brother (Jamie Bell) and his brother’s girlfriend (Genesis Rodriguez) comes into play, and the ridiculousness starts to mount. The film bounces back and forth between well-planned-but-absurd orchestrated plans and insanely good luck.
We do learn about Cassidy’s troubles, how he came to be convicted and what led him to become, well, a Man on a Ledge. But we don’t especially care. Movies like this often depend on a certain amount of suspension of disbelief. But rarely are we asked to throw good sense off the side of a building.
There are occasional nice touches. Kyra Sedgwick is funny as an obnoxious television reporter named Suzie Morales, who trills the R in her last name in exaggerated fashion. Titus Welliver is always a welcome presence, even if here he mostly stomps around and yells at people. And Worthington and Banks show signs of what seems as if it could be good chemistry, only to have it interrupted at every turn by another ludicrous development.
Too bad. You sense that someone could have made a good movie with this material. Unfortunately, Leth didn’t.
Posted in 
Tags: 
