Man on a Ledge
Not more than two minutes into Man on a Ledge, we get the particulars.
The ledge is on the 25th floor of the venerable Roosevelt Hotel in Manhattan, and the man perched upon it is a suicidal ex-con dealing with a host of family issues.
Thus begins the challenge of this thriller from Danish director Asger Leth — to create feature-length suspense from a scenario that requires its main character to remain almost motionless.
The film falls apart from there, devising a host of contrivances to keep the action moving while forgetting that character believability is the key to audiences developing sympathy for the stranger’s plight.
As the film unfolds, it becomes obvious that the original story of ex-cop Nick (Sam Worthington) has its share of fabrications and exaggerations. He winds up at the hotel after escaping from police custody following a fight with his brother (Jamie Bell) at their father’s funeral. He claims his innocence to a police negotiator (Elizabeth Banks), and said the combination of events has driven him to madness.
But that doesn’t explain the criminal activity across the street that seems to coincide with Nick’s creation of a public spectacle and irritates the hotel owner (Ed Harris) who has a seedy history with the suspect.
Leth, who made the terrific documentary Ghosts of Cite Soleil (2006), could have used his nonfiction background to give the film a grittier texture, especially as it pertains to the public fervor and police activity on the ground as Nick’s intentions remain unclear.
He isn’t assisted much by the script from Pablo Fenjves, a writer who is best known for being the neighbor of Nicole Brown Simpson at the time of her murder in 1994.
The screenplay becomes increasingly far-fetched, both in terms of Nick’s motives and methods, and the response of investigators to the whole situation. It doesn’t help matters that Australia native Worthington struggles to stick with his American accent.
Perhaps credit is due at least for bravery, since some of the sequences on the ledge were filmed on location, where cast and crew must have encountered some level of danger or acrophobia.
Yet that sense of peril is never conveyed to moviegoers, who might be more inclined to side with street-level gawkers who want Nick to just take the plunge.
Rated PG-13, 102 minutes.