Former NYPD detective Nick Cassidy (Sam Worthington) has escaped from prison, getting into a fight with his younger brother Joey (Jamie Bell) in order to disorient and distract the corrections officers guarding him during their father’s funeral. A few days later, he is now standing on a ledge outside the famed Roosevelt Hotel speaking with NYPD negotiator Lydia Spencer (Elizabeth Banks), proclaiming she is the only one who can help him prove his innocence otherwise he’s going to dive head-first into the pavement below.

Sam Worthington in Man on a Ledge © Summit Entertainment

Lydia’s co-negotiator Jack Dougherty (Edward Burns) doesn’t believe she is up to the task, sure she’ll let this former, currently burnt-out cop get the better of her. At the same time, Nick’s former partner Mike Ackerman (Anthony Mackie) is bizarrely eager to be a part of the case, doing his best to worm his way into the room even though no one involved wants him there. Most intriguingly, Manhattan real estate magnate and owner of the Roosevelt David Englander (Ed Harris) is particularly interested in getting this man off his ledge, preferably without a pulse, the pair’s last encounter one he wasn’t fond of and full of secrets he’d rather not see the light of day.

There’s a lot going on in Man on a Ledge, even more than I hint at in that brief synopsis, Pablo F. Fenjves’ script filled with more twists and turns than you can shake a stick at. But for all its puzzles, for all its red herrings, for as hard as it tries to keep the audience at a loss, the movie itself is really nothing more than a rather pedestrian B-movie affair, and figuring out where it is all going and what the outcome is going to be isn’t particularly difficult to do.

At the same time, director Asger Leth (Ghosts of Cité Soleil) has cast things so well and keeps the pace moving with such giddy enthusiasm by and large this silly over the top mess is kind of hard to entirely dislike. The first half is a particular hoot, Worthington, Bell and everyone else having such a grand time playing with expectation and riffing on Fenjves’ dialogue their collective gusto kind of becomes infectious. The movie plays like some weird distaff cinematic cousin of “Prison Break” meets “White Collar,” fans of both programs almost certain to have a heck of time watching a large portion of this.

But the last third of the movie is a bona fide mess, idiocies of the script building beyond the breaking point leading to a climax that would have been better served to have been left on the cutting room floor. Allusions to Dog Day Afternoon are cute, and Worthington certainly gives it his all, but the head-scratching climactic theatrics are just to foolish and idiotic to be believed, undermining all the good will the first half had engendered leading me to shake my head in half-mocking disappointment at what it was I was sadly witnessing.

I don’t have a lot more to add, mainly because Man on a Ledge doesn’t deserve any more of my creative acumen in regards to this review. Documentarian Leth shows promise as a narrative filmmaker, and there is certainly plenty of energy and style to spare as far as his visual style is concerned, but the movie is just too silly and full of itself to even minutely take seriously, and even for a potential guilty pleasure this one simply doesn’t get the job done. The final effort falls flat on its face, leaving a bruised and battered mess too full of cliché I could care less about.

Film Rating: êê (out of 4)

Additional Links

• Man on a Ledge Theatrical Trailer