We're not very far into "Man on a Ledge," when we realize that Nick Cassidy (Sam Worthington) is no more going to jump off the Roosevelt Hotel window ledge than you and I. But what's he doing out there?
That comes clear a little while later as this hodge-podge of a movie combines dozens of cops-and-robbers cliches in an often-turgid, occasionally lively tale, written by Pablo F. Fenjes , whose claim to fame is that he was the ghost-writer of the book in which O. J. Simpson "imagined" he was the perpetrator of the crime for which he was found not guilty.
Cassidy is a former New York policeman and a criminal who has served time, now taking the fall for David Englander (a wasted Ed Harris), a richer and smarter criminal. But Cassidy has figured a way to get back at Englander and enrich himself at the same time. So while he stands on the ledge and talks with the police psychologist (Elizabeth Banks), his kid brother, Joey (Jamie Bell) and his cute, brash, sexy-tough girl friend, Angie (Genesis Rodriguez) are doing a little work patterned after any (or every) episode of "Mission: Impossible." They're crawling through building pipes while taking instruction from the elder brother.
Director Asger Lath gets some extra mileage by shooting the crowd down below and getting some good work from Kyra Sedgwick as Suzie Morales, a brash TV reporter.
The acting is fine, and the pacing is good. The writing is just so sloppy that there's very little worthwhile entertainment going on, either on the ledge or the street corner — or in the building's innards.
Man on a Ledge opens today (January 27) at several theaters.
— Joe