*MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS*

I had my reservations about seeing this film: the title is lazy, the cast doesn’t excite me at all and the trailers did absolutely nothing to sell this film to me. However, I really wanted to go to the cinema today and the only film on in the time slot available was Man On A Ledge, so I ended up watching it, and I have to say, despite it’s flaws, it surprised me.

Sam Worthington plays Nick Cassidy, a cop turned convict, who has escaped from prison and is now the man on a ledge, protesting his innocence and wanting everybody to know that he is innocent. But whilst the police are negotiating with what they think is a suicidal man Nick’s brother, Joey Cassidy (Jamie Bell) and Joey’s girlfriend Angie (Genesis Rodriguez) are using this cover to attempt a robbery from a building across the street in order to steal a diamond which Nick has supposedly stolen, cut down and sold on. Therefore, stealing this diamond would prove Nick’s innocence. Got it?

So I guess we have to talk about the acting, unfortunately. Sam Worthington is again given the lead role in a movie and again puts in an average to poor performance. Up until his character actually has something to do Worthington doesn’t really do enough to keep the audience interested in his character. I still like Jamie Bell from his days in Billy Elliot and I really do think he is a talented young actor but I think he needs to be wiser when choosing which films to appear in; his performance is below par and I was really hoping for something stronger from him. And as for Genesis Rodriguez, she is apparently only there to provide an eyeful of cleavage and to get a few shots of her body in the film to keep men interested. It’s as if the makers of this film doubted they could keep the attention of the audience themselves. The one bright spark in this film though, both in character story and portrayal, is Lydia Mercer played excellently by Elizabeth Banks and quite frankly I was interested in her character and her scenes a lot more than any other character of this film.

The story doesn’t really offer up anything we haven’t seen before. It plays out with a lot of back story, trying to create some mystery for the audience, but it fails. From the fight at the funeral I managed to guess every single twist the film had in store and I don’t want to be able to do that when I’m seeing a film for the first time! The film does pick up, however, once Nick is forced to run from the attempts to get him off the ledge and the sequence with him running around the edge of the hotel before jumping through a couple of windows was very enjoyable, as were the rest of the action scenes. Okay, so there’s a few things that are VERY unbelievable (when he jumps from the building, lands on the pad at the bottom and then manages to still get the diamond from Englander for example) but they can be overlooked in this film as it clearly isn’t trying to take itself seriously by this point.

And as for the ending… it seems very rushed and very ‘Hollywood’. One minute the film is still going on, he’s just got the diamond back, he’s proved his innocence, what’s going to happen now? Oh right, you’ve got the girl, you go to a pub and another twist is revealed that I managed to guess the second time of seeing that character. Well, thanks for that. And as for the proposal at the end… give me a break! The relationship between Joey and Angie made me cringe all the way through the film, the pair clearly had no chemistry and it just seemed forced.

But if you can overlook the bad acting and the routine story then you will enjoy this film as it does have a lot to enjoy. Just make sure you don’t go expecting to see something that’s going to make you think.

My rating: 5/10