Grade: B+
Yang: Fun mash up of heist flicks and hostage thrillers with a brisk pace, constant thrills and a few charmingly clever moments. Standout performances by Jamie Bell and Ed Harris as a smart-ass thief and a ruthless real estate tycoon.
Yin: Predictable and swimming in cliché, but still entertaining to a fault. Smart viewers will figure out all the angles halfway through, and some great talent (Anthony Mackie, Edward Burns, etc.) is woefully underused.
In-Between: Ever get that feeling of being in a high place, and you just want to jump? This film may help calm that feeling.
A few years back Colin Farrell starred in Phone Booth, a gimmicky thriller about a man trapped in a phone booth by an unseen stalker.
A few months ago, Ben Stiller starred in a Tower Heist, a hokey heist comedy about a barely competent gaggle of working class schmoes trying to rob the shady investment banker who depleted their retirement funds.
Asger Leth’s Man on a Ledge takes some of the better ideas from Phone Booth and Tower Heist and rolls them into a unseasonably entertaining thriller heist movie that succeeds despite wading neck deep in predictable plot turns and clichés.
The titular man on a ledge is Sam Worthington’s ex-con Nick Cassidy, an ex-cop who is seeking to prove his innocence by, logically, threating to jump off the 21st floor of New York’s Roosevelt Hotel. To help in his quest for self-exoneration, Cassidy enlists the aid of disgraced hostage negotiator Lydia Mercer (Elizabeth Banks, adding to her list of dramatic roles), who is constantly second-guessed by the NYPD boys club detectives like Edward Burns’ Detective Jack Dougherty. With the local constabulary’s attention focused on Cassidy’s potential pavement dive, Jamie Bell’s Joey and girlfriend Angie (the biblical Genesis Rodriguez) stage an elaborate heist of a priceless diamond from Ed Harris’ Lex Luthor-esque real estate shark, just across the street from Cassidy’s scene. There’s no way these two events could be related, right?
While the twists are pretty well telegraphed and the characters are all archetypes firmly entrenched in hostage and heist narratives, Leth has managed to arrange these overused elements in a solidly entertaining configuration that proves to be wonderfully tense from start to finish. The key to Leth’s success is solid pacing and a welcome lack of pretension, as there’s enough light humor to keep the proceedings from becoming too dour. Man on a Ledge wastes little time getting Worthington up on the ledge and drawing all sorts of atypical griping from cranky New Yawkas. Admittedly, watching Worthington on a ledge for 90 minutes could have been excruciating, but the light intrigue of Cassidy’s motivation and the focus on the diamond heist keep the plot moving and investment high, if only because audiences are trying to figure how all the pieces fit together, which is never a bad thing. Also, it doesn’t hurt that the heist itself is a marvel of amateur larceny that makes the efforts of Ben Stiller’s Tower Heist crew seem desperately pedestrian by comparison. Suffice to say, there are very few, if any, dull moments in this flick, topped of by a climax that delivers exactly what any crowd wants from of jumper situation in fashion so spectacular that it won’t be forgotten until the bigger budget blockbusters arrive in a few months.
Man on a Ledge’s solid pacing and action is complemented by decent performances, particularly from Jamie Bell and Ed Harris, Elizabeth Banks and , to a lesser extent, Edward Burns. Bell and Harris standout as the high notes among the cast by bringing a wicked liveliness to their roles that as a brash thief and a ruthless tycoon, respectively. Banks does her best to anchor this movie as seemingly the only sane woman on the NYPD, in the process showing that she’s becoming increasingly comfortable expanding her range beyond comedy with an earnest, smart performance. Burns balances his trademarks smarm with some reasonable charm as one of the few detectives who’ll abide Mercer’s hunches.
Conversely, star Sam Worthington and second leading lady, Genesis Rodriguez, are the weak links with Rodriguez faring slightly better than Worthington, who is continuing to find ways to avoid acting in favor of dropping his voice and glowering. Rodriguez, unfortunately, is mostly called upon to show off her assets and play-up the spicy Latina stereotype. Luckily, she gets to offset those less-than-pleasant stereotypes by being one of the more competent and perceptive characters. Anthony Mackie is also on hand, skulking around the periphery as Cassidy’s former partner who seems to be more than he lets on, in a role that sadly handicaps Mackie’s wonderful energy and range. Thankfully, the brisk pacing, unrelenting tension and energetic set pieces more than make up for the weaker performances.
Admittedly, as a January release, expectations for Man on a Ledge are probably low, but this flick will surprise audiences. Sure, Leth’s not reinventing the wheel when it comes to neither the hostage nor the heist genre, but he has mashed the two up into a fun exercise that is fairly clever and consistently enjoyable. The typical disclaimer for flicks like this is that not every movie has to be a masterpiece or a blockbuster. And, that’s true. Man on a Ledge may not be slickest, cleverest, most profound, or revelatory entry into the hostage/heist thriller, but it is slick enough, clever enough, and entertaining enough to get more than a few gasps, chuckles and cheers from its audiences.
A few months ago, Ben Stiller starred in a Tower Heist, a hokey heist comedy about a barely competent gaggle of working class schmoes trying to rob the shady investment banker who depleted their retirement funds.
Asger Leth’s Man on a Ledge takes some of the better ideas from Phone Booth and Tower Heist and rolls them into a unseasonably entertaining thriller heist movie that succeeds despite wading neck deep in predictable plot turns and clichés.
The titular man on a ledge is Sam Worthington’s ex-con Nick Cassidy, an ex-cop who is seeking to prove his innocence by, logically, threating to jump off the 21st floor of New York’s Roosevelt Hotel. To help in his quest for self-exoneration, Cassidy enlists the aid of disgraced hostage negotiator Lydia Mercer (Elizabeth Banks, adding to her list of dramatic roles), who is constantly second-guessed by the NYPD boys club detectives like Edward Burns’ Detective Jack Dougherty. With the local constabulary’s attention focused on Cassidy’s potential pavement dive, Jamie Bell’s Joey and girlfriend Angie (the biblical Genesis Rodriguez) stage an elaborate heist of a priceless diamond from Ed Harris’ Lex Luthor-esque real estate shark, just across the street from Cassidy’s scene. There’s no way these two events could be related, right?
While the twists are pretty well telegraphed and the characters are all archetypes firmly entrenched in hostage and heist narratives, Leth has managed to arrange these overused elements in a solidly entertaining configuration that proves to be wonderfully tense from start to finish. The key to Leth’s success is solid pacing and a welcome lack of pretension, as there’s enough light humor to keep the proceedings from becoming too dour. Man on a Ledge wastes little time getting Worthington up on the ledge and drawing all sorts of atypical griping from cranky New Yawkas. Admittedly, watching Worthington on a ledge for 90 minutes could have been excruciating, but the light intrigue of Cassidy’s motivation and the focus on the diamond heist keep the plot moving and investment high, if only because audiences are trying to figure how all the pieces fit together, which is never a bad thing. Also, it doesn’t hurt that the heist itself is a marvel of amateur larceny that makes the efforts of Ben Stiller’s Tower Heist crew seem desperately pedestrian by comparison. Suffice to say, there are very few, if any, dull moments in this flick, topped of by a climax that delivers exactly what any crowd wants from of jumper situation in fashion so spectacular that it won’t be forgotten until the bigger budget blockbusters arrive in a few months.
Man on a Ledge’s solid pacing and action is complemented by decent performances, particularly from Jamie Bell and Ed Harris, Elizabeth Banks and , to a lesser extent, Edward Burns. Bell and Harris standout as the high notes among the cast by bringing a wicked liveliness to their roles that as a brash thief and a ruthless tycoon, respectively. Banks does her best to anchor this movie as seemingly the only sane woman on the NYPD, in the process showing that she’s becoming increasingly comfortable expanding her range beyond comedy with an earnest, smart performance. Burns balances his trademarks smarm with some reasonable charm as one of the few detectives who’ll abide Mercer’s hunches.
Conversely, star Sam Worthington and second leading lady, Genesis Rodriguez, are the weak links with Rodriguez faring slightly better than Worthington, who is continuing to find ways to avoid acting in favor of dropping his voice and glowering. Rodriguez, unfortunately, is mostly called upon to show off her assets and play-up the spicy Latina stereotype. Luckily, she gets to offset those less-than-pleasant stereotypes by being one of the more competent and perceptive characters. Anthony Mackie is also on hand, skulking around the periphery as Cassidy’s former partner who seems to be more than he lets on, in a role that sadly handicaps Mackie’s wonderful energy and range. Thankfully, the brisk pacing, unrelenting tension and energetic set pieces more than make up for the weaker performances.
Admittedly, as a January release, expectations for Man on a Ledge are probably low, but this flick will surprise audiences. Sure, Leth’s not reinventing the wheel when it comes to neither the hostage nor the heist genre, but he has mashed the two up into a fun exercise that is fairly clever and consistently enjoyable. The typical disclaimer for flicks like this is that not every movie has to be a masterpiece or a blockbuster. And, that’s true. Man on a Ledge may not be slickest, cleverest, most profound, or revelatory entry into the hostage/heist thriller, but it is slick enough, clever enough, and entertaining enough to get more than a few gasps, chuckles and cheers from its audiences.
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