Man on a Ledge

IMDB
First time viewed: Yes
Current Release: Yes
Watched With: Myself

This film came out the week I was away. When I came back I was a bit dismayed to see it was already only playing once a day at my local cinema. As I write this up it's already finished it's very brief cinema release as I managed to just catch the very last session on Wednesday morning.

Surely a sign that the movie tanked and is probably no good right? Unfortunately for the film but fortunately me I was totally satisfied with this one. I didn't know it at the time but I really needed a bit of fun like this and it managed to hit that sweet spot.

I had seen the trailer a few times so I knew a bit about what to expect but I think this film rewards no knowing too much beyond the basic Man on a Ledge premise. Sam Worthington is that man, and he continues to prove you don't need to be able to hold an accent in order to be a leading man in Hollywood, bless him.

It's rounded out by a pretty cool cast, with 2 of my favs, Elizabeth Banks and Jamie Bell. And Ed Harris shows up half way through the film as the bad guy. What fun.

Now I would have loved to see them do a phonebooth and make the Man on the Ledge story the focus of the whole film, but this is not one of those films. This one has the flashbacks and the action and heist film and revenge, it's basically a slightly more centralised than usual action film and it has interesting enough characters that you can get invested in what's going on.

My biggest complaint is the series of increasingly implausible coincidences needed to made the resolution turn out the way it does. They stretch things pretty far but by that stage I think I was just so happy to be in a cinema and enjoying myself that I didn't care that much.

And when he finally does go off the ledge and the camera follows, man if that doesn't give you vertigo, I don't know what will. Major props for not cheaping out and using bluescreen for the whole film. Actually filming in New York that high up really makes a world of difference.

I really enjoyed this as a fun popcorn action film, it's a shame its release totally got dumped here.