Review: Man On A Ledge (2012)

by

26, January 2012Reviews

Cast: Sam Worthington, Elizabeth Banks, Jamie Bell
Director: Asger Leth
Country: USA
Genre: Crime | Thriller
Official Trailer: Here

Exuberantly preposterous, Man on a Ledge lands in North American theaters not with a splat, but rather like a pleasant bit of wayward summer fluff. The kind that invites you to power down your brain and, as the saying goes, “enjoy the ride.”

Or maybe it’s not a different season that this opportunistic action-thriller recalls but an entirely different decade. Marrying a high-concept premise that might have been conceived in the ‘80s or ‘90s to a 1930’s-style righteous-convict-against-the-world theme and, most obviously, the classic extended climax of 1923’s Safety Last, Pablo Venjves’s script seems to have been lab-grown from the genetic code of a buttery popcorn kernel. To its credit, Man on a Ledge uses its visual quoting of the aforementioned Harold Lloyd classic in a far more convincing way than Scorsese’s Hugo recently did. But that’s about the only thing in the film that is convincing.

Marrying a high-concept premise that might have been conceived in the ‘80s or ‘90s to a 1930’s-style righteous-convict-against-the-world them…

As the title character, Sam Worthington does a lot of emoting out on that narrow stage, and Elizabeth Banks, as a kind of misunderstood ledge-whisperer, does her fair share back at him. That’s what passes for characterization, but it’s actually sufficient for the goals here: we’re given just enough depth and motivation to set up a web of intersecting conflicts, the complexity of which is one of the bright spots of the story. However, as if realizing the limitations in a setting that’s only fourteen inches wide, Man on a Ledge opens up its action by crosscutting to a heist picture subplot featuring Jamie Bell as Worthington’s brother, and Genesis Rodriguez in a supporting role to, well, her own cleavage. Their comic patter falls flat, and first-time feature director Asger Leth has little feel for staging the couple’s suspense sequences, which unfortunately come across like clips from a poor man’s Mission: Impossible.

We’re relieved, then, whenever the focus returns to Worthington and Banks as a cop-against-cop drama gradually takes shape that strongly echoes The Negotiator—a 1998 release that might as well have been made in pre-Columbian times as far as the target audience’s memory is concerned. Here Worthington functions, in essence, as his own hostage, but otherwise the dynamic is the same. Adding to the sense of familiarity is an early car chase that’s resolved like countless other pursuits before it in cinematic history, sub-Law and Order hardboiled police argot, Kyra Sedgwick’s stock news reporter character (mix one part cynicism with two parts awkward exposition), and a Lumetesque whiff of corruption within the NYPD. With respect to the latter, at one point a crowd member begins to chant “Attica! Attica!” per Dog Day Afternoon. In this way Venjves at least makes one of his allusions/borrowings explicit—the rest he leaves, out of great consideration, for movie buffs to discover on their own.

…as if realizing the limitations in a setting that’s only fourteen inches wide, Man on a Ledge opens up its action by crosscutting to a heist picture subplot…

I’m concerned, though, that all of this carping about things such as originality is obscuring the degree to which I really enjoyed the picture’s straightforward, goofy multiplex charm.

Loved the way, for example, that Ed Harris’s villain is drawn with all the subtlety of Donald Trump crossbred with Cruella De Vil.

Loved how Ed Burns spouts his world-weary dialogue in a way that suggests he could play similar “sarcastic copper” roles for the next quarter century if he so chose.

Loved the absurdity of a helicopter blithely flying low over Madison Avenue in this post-9/11 era just so we can be treated to a few seconds of “Uh-oh, will our hero be blown away—literally?”

Loved how an Irish-American apparently fathered a Brit (Bell reveals a quasi-brogue when he’s angry) and an Aussie (Worthington’s accent is evident throughout).

I especially loved how the brisk, never-look-back pace that Leth and editor Kevin Stitt achieve helps you ignore the constant questioning of the characters you might be tempted to engage in every thirty seconds or so. “Why don’t the cops do x, the bad guys do y, and the good guys do z?”—such thinking will get you nowhere, my friend. One marvels at the fact that, according to the press notes, the documentarian Leth was hired precisely for his knack of dealing with realism—without the grounding he supplies, Man on a Ledge probably would have ended up more fantastical than a Harry Potter installment.

But those aren’t the director’s only contributions. He does a terrific job of framing the medium-close ledge shots so that even when we don’t see the drop or get a skyscraper-level eyeline to the vistas beyond, we sense the sheer verticality that lies just a few inches off-screen. The presence of empty space, of absence, has never been so palpable—nor maintained in such a prolonged manner. Consequently, for those prone to movie-induced vertigo (e.g., yours truly) even animated exchanges of dialogue become nerve-wracking, as every little movement, every head jerk, threatens to send the subject plunging out of the frame. Over time this technique acts like a leaky tap of some adrenaline-producing agent: it keeps you hopelessly keyed up because of the background level of tension it promotes.

A cheap ploy? Maybe. But, hey, if you opt to see a movie called “Man on a Ledge,” you know that certain narrative and filmic devices are going to be exploited. In fact, you’d be disappointed if they weren’t. In this sense, and many others, Man on a Ledge relentlessly gives viewers what it thinks they want. The crowning stunt is especially gratifying in this respect. Afterward, the brief resolution sequence practically wallows in its own cheerful ridiculousness… but because of this selfsame tone and approach is almost guaranteed to put a smile on your face. Indeed, the same could be said of the entire movie.

72/100 - If you opt to see a movie called “Man on a Ledge,” you know that certain narrative and filmic devices are going to be exploited. In fact, you’d be disappointed if they weren’t.

Peter Gutierrez
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Home Video Editor. My father began bringing me to New York's grindhouses well before my tenth birthday, which may account for why I turned out like this. I am both deeply embarrassed and oddly proud to have rated 7000 titles on Netflix--a lifetime wasted watching screens that I now try to leverage into semi-respectability as a member of the Online Film Critics Society.