Man On A Ledge - No Way!

(2012) ★★☆☆☆

This film seems intriguing enough in the beginning where a man (Sam Worthington) checks in a hotel, goes to a room at the top floor, abides his time, wipes his fingerprints off anything he’s touched, writes a note claiming his innocence, opens up a window, steps onto the ledge and is ready to jump off. Then a flashback to one month earlier, we learn that he’s set up and doing his time, but soon he’s going to be released on parole to attend his father’s funeral. That’s how he escapes and ends up on a ledge now threatening to commit suicide unless his name’s cleared.

What looks ridiculous and unconvincing is that everything happening there seems to be part of his plan. Even things that are probably not also go his way, like surviving a serious hit by a passing train; predicting correctly how others think and move including the one that drives the train; the one that flies the chopper; those cops he negotiates with, his brother, his brother’s girlfriend, the tactical, the one holding the thing that can prove his innocence, etc. Such a plan is in fact too big and complicated to work out right without any flaw, but it does in the film. Also, I wonder, why wouldn’t he let his brother be ‘the man on a ledge’ and go steal ‘the thing’ himself? That’d be much more convenient, don’t you think? Anyhow he pulls it off. What a lucky man he is, but I guess such a miracle can only take place in a preposterous film like that.