The plot is ... well, the plot is just ridiculous.
ELIZABETH BANKS and SAM WORTHINGTON star in MAN ON A LEDGE
"Man on a Ledge" TWO STARS
PG-13 for strong language and violence.
Running time: 102 minutes
The movie is called “Man on a Ledge,” but right from the start the story is in freefall.
The hero, Nick, is an ex-cop and convicted diamond thief – who escapes from prison, only to check into a midtown hotel, order himself a nice dinner and then climb out the window, threatening to jump.
Pretty soon a crowd forms, Then a nice (and, of course, beautiful) NYPD negotiator shows up to try and talk him down, or rather, in. He won’t budget. But eventually he will tell her, and us, what he’s up to.
And it’s pretty ridiculous.
I don’t want to give anything away, but seriously, you couldn’t give this movie away with a full tank of gas. Skip the next paragraph if you’re still planning to see it, and are spoiler averse.
OK? So, anyway, it turns out our cop’s threatened suicide is just a diversion, giving two people the chance to prove him innocent – by breaking into a high-security vault, Mission: Impossible style, and proving that the gem Nick is supposed to have stolen was never stolen at all.
OK, spoilers over.
The movie, however, is pretty spoiled from the start. As Nick, Sam Worthington that big slab of grass-fed Australian beef who everyone keeps saying is going to be big is merely bland. As the negotiator, Elizabeth Banks is irredeemably perky.
Far worse is Jamie Bell as Worthington’s kid brother, who comes across like a small furtive mammal, and telenovela star Genesis Rodriguez as the kid brother’s girlfriend, a Latina spitfire stereotype almost as crushingly restrictive as her purple Wonderbra.
These are the four leads, folks, and they’re no help.
As in a lot of movies these days, the supporting actors are the real draw. Ed Burns, who is beginning to look like Brian Williams’ more-fun brother, is fine as another Banks’ friend; as Nick’s old partner Anthony Mackie is, as always, as cool and sharp as an icicle.
There are also a couple of great who’s-that-guy? faces in the cast too, including the dog-tired William Sadler as a bellboy. And the blisteringly authentic Titus Welliver as an officer who is about one frayed nerve away from putting one of these young cops through a wall.
But, without going back into spoiler territory, suffice it to say that the plot is – well, the plot is just ridiculous, from hissable villains (including a pushy TV reporter straight out of “Scream”) to some impossible trickery. Although the stuntwork is great, the direction is strictly point-and-shoot, without any real sense of height or space.
This is one of the few movies that actually needed to be made in 3D. As it is, though, it’s barely in 2D – and it’s unclear why it needed to be made at all.