As a police psychologist works to talk down an ex-con who is threatening to jump from a Manhattan hotel rooftop, the biggest diamond heist ever committed is in motion.
I like Sam Worthington. He’s a solid actor with the right script and “Man on a Ledge” gives him plenty of opportunities to flex his acting chops. Being surrounded by an A-list cast consisting of Ed Harris, Elizabeth Banks, Edward Burns, and Jamie Bell, also helps. The issue I have is not with him personally but with his accent. Hailing from Australia, when he plays an American onscreen, his accent constantly slips between American and Australian and as a result, it can sometimes take you out of the film. As a fellow actor myself, I understand how difficult it can be trying to concentrate on the scene at hand, the memorization of dialogue, camera blocking and then having to do an accent. It’s not easy but if he hired a better dialect coach he would sound much better. Aside from this one minor grievance, Mr. Worthington is always watchable and appealing.
In “Man on a Ledge,” Mr. Worthington plays Nick Cassidy, an ex-cop who was arrested for supposedly stealing a famous diamond called the Monarch Diamond, worth an estimated $40 million, from businessman David Englander (Ed Harris). Englander claims that Cassidy was hired off-duty to protect the diamond but stole it from him instead. While serving a 25-year prison sentence at the Sing Sing Correctional Facility in New York, Cassidy is allowed one day’s leave under the watchful eye of two detectives while he attends his father’s funeral. Afterward, he gets into an altercation with his brother Joey (Jamie Bell) and when the two cops intervene, he manages to get the upper hand on them, cuffing them together and escaping in their car. Later, he checks into the Roosevelt Hotel in New York City under a false name and when he gets to his room on the 21st floor, he steps out onto the balcony, giving the impression that he is a jumper.
When the cops come to cordon off the street below, Detective Jack Dougherty (Edward Burns) is assigned to talking Nick down but Nick states that he will only speak with negotiator Lydia Mercer (Elizabeth Banks). When Mercer arrives on the scene and tries to assess the situation after talking with Nick, she tells Dougherty that he doesn’t appear to be a jumper and that something else appears to be going on. They eventually uncover his true identity and Nick tells Mercer that he was framed by Englander for stealing the diamond and that Englander still has it in his possession and that there were several dirty cops involved, he just doesn’t know their identities. Naturally, Mercer is somewhat hesitant and asks him if he has proof and he says he is working on it. As Nick and Mercer begin to trust each other, he tells her that his brother Joey and his girlfriend Angie (Genesis Rodriguez) are inside Englander’s office building across the street and that they are going to steal the diamond just so they can prove to the world that Nick never took it and is innocent.
After speaking with an officer from Internal Affairs, Mercer discovers that they were investigating three dirty cops that were involved in the diamond case. One of them is now dead and the other two, Detective Dante Marcus (Titus Welliver) and Nick’s old partner, Mike Ackerman (Anthony Mackie), are in charge of the situation involving Nick on the 21st floor. As she quickly makes her way back upstairs, she is told that she is off the case and that they are going to take Nick down, one way or the other. With tensions rising and time running out, Mercer must find an alternative way to reach Nick before Marcus and Ackerman do and to make matters worse, when Joey and Angie finally open the safe in Englander’s office and realize that the diamond is not in there, they must come up with an alternate plan before he discovers them.
“Man on a Ledge” is a taut, intelligent thriller with plenty of twists to keep even the most attentive viewers on their toes. All of the central characters each have their moment to shine and the movie, thankfully, never regresses, rather, it focuses on forward momentum and unraveling the story in a very believable and realistic fashion. For a thriller that is. Director Asger Leth creates some terrific moments of tension as Nick comes perilously close to falling from his ledge, all to prove to the world that he is innocent. Highly recommended.
Available on 4K Ultra HD™ Combo Pack (plus Blu-ray™ and Digital) April 9th
