Man on a Ledge
Nick Cassidy is a convicted cop who got sent to jail after stealing a diamond worth 40 million dollars from wealthy businessman David Englander. Although he always kept saying he was innocent, nobody believed him and when his final appeal comes up short, he’s left with nothing but his ultimate plan to prove his innocense. When his dad dies, he gets permission to visit the funeral and takes that opportunity to escape. A few days later, he arrives in the Roosevelt Hotel where he crawls out of the window and stands on the ledge, ready to jump. At least, that’s what people are supposed to believe.
While negotiator Lydia Mercer tries to talk him off the ledge, his brother Joey and his girlfriend Angie are across the street, breaking into Englander’s building to retrieve the diamond and as such show the world Englander never lost it and scammed the world.
Man on a Ledge lacks credibility. The entire scheme to prove Cassidy’s innocense is supposedly planned for over a year, but when you watch the movie there’s a ton of inconsistencies and the script relies heavily on coincidences that each time just suddenly happen and help our hero in achieving his goal. As such, you really have to turn off your brain if you want to enjoy this movie especially towards the end which even completely undermines Cassidy’s entire escape in the first place.
If you do manage to stop thinking about what’s going on, then you’ll find director Asger Leth did deliver an enjoyable thriller that contains a bit of Ocean’s Eleven combined with The Negotiator. Add to that a Sam Worthington who shows why he’s one of the rising stars in Hollywood, Ed Harris who as always is perfectly cast as the villain, Elizabeth Banks as the understanding and supportive negotiator, and Genesis Rodriguez as the smoking hot babe who cannot be left out, and you’ve got everything for almost two hours of pure entertainment.
The image looks very clean, skin tones are natural and strong, compression errors are absent, the sky shots of New York are great and for once hardly contain any aliasing, and Rodriguez’s pink bra is just pure perfection. Yes, we do like to see some female flesh in a movie now and then, especially when it look as gorgious as in Man on a Ledge.
The soundtrack nicely supports the movie with good use of the surrounds for environment sounds created by the people in the streets and the wind wooshing around the building where Worthington is standing. The subwoofer meanwhile actively supports the whole, giving the extra oomph with explosions and music. Technically, Man on a Ledge is near perfection.
7.0
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