I had a good feeling about this movie before even entering the cinema, because the 'Man On A Ledge' movie poster had already made me feel queezy just looking at it.
Surely if a poster can have an effect on you, the movie will certainly live up to that, I thought to myself.
Not one for heights, or attending a movie on my own, I braved both last night to catch this flick, starring our very own Sam Worthington.
Worthington plays the title role of Nick Cassidy, a former cop who escapes prison after being framed for stealing a diamond from businessman David Englander (played by a very skinny Ed Harris).
It isn't long before he ends up on the ledge of a hotel building in Manhattan, hoping to prove his innocence. With the attention of the city below him, you begin to ask if his innocence is all that this spectacle is about.
Nick requests NYPD's Lydia Spencer (Elizabeth Banks) as his negotiator for reasons later revealed, and it is from here that we learn there is much more to the story than what Nick has let on.
Other characters of note are Nick's brother Joey (Jamie Bell) and Joey's girlfriend Angie (Genesis Rodriguez), who take the story on a fairly expected and predictable turn.
Although this film plods along at a pretty good pace, rarely leaving me wondering why I didn't buy that popcorn, it is nothing but predictable.
The story itself is fairly simple, it's as the title states a man on a ledge, and is nothing that hasn't been done in Hollywood before, I'm sorry to say.
The city is brought to a standstill by one individual, similar to the feel of the film 'Phone Booth', and you keep watching in the hope that it's going to make a spectacular, unexpected turn.
And it doesn't. Nevertheless, the one good thing I do have to say about this fact is that it is fairly mindless to watch. There's action, a little suspense and nice camera work from the top of the building which sent me very occasionally in to a short panic. It has the necessary elements to make a movie watchable from start to finish.
It's just that when the movie is finished, you doubt you'll ever watch it again, and continue to wonder how to put together that time machine you've been dreaming about so you can get those minutes back.
And Sam Worthington. He looks just like any guy you would see down at your local pub, which actually sits really well with me. I like the fact that he is not your typical chiselled Hollywood star. I like that he is real. What I didn't like though, was that his accent kept dropping in and out.
At the beginning of the film, I made a mental note to mention in this review how great he was at an American accent. About 45 minutes in, I thought I was listening to Russell Crowe, especially when he was yelling. But he just couldn't seem to hold the accent, which was disappointing. I wonder at what point during the movie making process do they start to phase the accent out. Why doesn't anyone tell him? I don't understand how a film can have such an obvious flaw.
However with all that said, I didn't hate this movie. Sure, it didn't quite hit the mark, I wouldn't see it again, and I wouldn't say it was brilliant, but I would recommend it if you're after a little bit of action in your afternoon, with very little thinking involved.
