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It's only a few minutes into Man on a Ledge before the camera pans up to a ledge, prompting ominous thoughts like: there is a ledge. Will there be a man on it soon? Will this man be played by Sam Worthington, and will he harbor a dark secret and/or a mysterious agenda?
Yes, yes, many times yes. Worthington plays Nick Cassidy, and after he gets up on that ledge -- not long after that first pan, as if desperate to prove his efficiency bona fides -- we learn a little more about him. He's a former cop, framed for stealing a diamond from businessman David Englander (Ed Harris), and he's on the ledge to protest and/or prove his innocence. Nearby, his brother Joey (Jamie Bell) and Joey's girlfriend Angie (Genesis Rodriguez) busy themselves with some sort of a break-in while the NYPD's Lydia Spencer (Elizabeth Banks) is called onto the scene to negotiator with Cassidy.
It becomes apparent that Cassidy may be up there as a distraction, and indeed, New York City takes notice of him with bizarre speed; he's on the ledge for about eight minutes before Suzie Morales (Kyra Sedgwick) arrives on the scene, kicking off a round-the-clock broadcast in front of a teeming crowd. In the world of Man on a Ledge, every potential jumper on a ledge, bridge, or other structure receives this sort of attention: an event from Lydia's recent past is revealed via similar footage of breathless all-eyes coverage. The old woman in the crowd complaining about blocked traffic rings truer than this instant circus, which features inane time-killing speculation and commentary from Morales suggesting a screenwriter who has heard of the news, but never actually watched it.
More galling than her tin-eared narration is that fact that the Sedgwick character serves no greater purpose to the movie's story -- which, like Cassidy's plan, involves a fair amount of stalling. Worthington isn't a bad actor, but his part by nature requires more righteous talk than decisive action, and he lacks the magnetism required to command attention in two-actor scenes set mostly on a ledge. Bell and Rodriguez, meanwhile, are set off to the side, having cute romantic-heist banter. As they sidestep alarm systems, you can track the growing tension by Rodriguez's breasts, which seem to heave further upward as the scenes progress until, naturally, she must doff her regular heist clothes in favor of a skintight bodysuit.
Some of the silliness, then, is at least superficially rewarding, and at points, the movie tweaks thriller clichés with what appears to be a wink. It's probably not the first time a movie cop has used the old "you should probably take a look at this" line (used in place of explaining a new piece of information as quickly as possible) as an actual trick rather than a dramatic shortcut, but it's the first time I can remember in a long while. Elsewhere, Bell and Rodriguez share a cut-the-red-wire moment where all of the wires look red because of the thief's lighting system: funny. Not especially suspenseful, but funny.
The casting of Banks as the negotiator has a similar lightweight charm. Banks, a delightful comic actress, was not exactly born to play a guilt-ridden, hard-bitten cop, but that same potential miscasting makes her more interesting to watch than, say, a sleepwalking Bruce Willis (she leaves the sleepwalking to Edward Burns, who plays a fellow cop as amusingly unexcited by the whole situation). The kinship Lydia develops with Cassidy appears almost romantic by the end, although she may just be leaning in closer to hear whether Cassidy has Worthington's Australian accent, or if he just slips into it when he gets intense (in any event, all signs beyond his vocal inflection point to Cassidy being of Irish stock; maybe the confusion is all part of his elaborate plan).
Charitably, Man on a Ledge makes very little sense, less so as it goes along. Less charitably, its final twenty or thirty minutes brings what seemed like regular thriller-grade ludicrousness to a fever pitch. It's all a bit like Spike Lee's Inside Man remade by tourists, and without much skill: not suspenseful enough to suspend any disbelief, and not stylish enough -- all faded overcast graininess -- to distract from its stupidity. But I must point out: this is not a boring movie. Ed Harris gnashes his teeth, Worthington tries to outrun a train, and the movie tries to wrap everything up with nonsensical folk-hero chumminess. If you see it, see it with friends with an ability to delight in the face of ridiculousness.
