Review: MAN ON A LEDGE

A perfectly fine, perfectly average thriller, Man on a Ledge holds no surprises, except how easy it is to guess what's going to happen next. The pleasure, such as it is, is all in the performances, so if you're a hard-core fan of Sam Worthington, Elizabeth Banks, Ed Harris, Jamie Bell, Anthony Mackie, Edward Burns, Genesis Rodriguez, William Sadler, and/or Kyra Sedgwick, you're in luck.

The film, directed by Asger Leth (Ghosts of Cité Soleil), establishes early on that it's not terribly interested in realism, and almost immediately drops broad hints that all is not as it seems. With a casual, jocular tone set, the effectiveness of certain scenes later in the story, which are evidently intended to be dead serious, are undermined, ensuring that the movie will not stick long in the memory banks.

(Indeed, the multitude of cameo appearances -- rather like a television variety show of old -- further undermines any thought of taking the film seriously.)

The uneven tone is also reflected in the performances, which are driven more by personality than character. Worthington's American accent, for example, fails him at key moments, and Banks often appears nonplussed, not knowing how she should play a particular scene, whether she's meant to be angry or baffled or deceived or complicit or crestfallen or ... whatever.

Banks is a game performer, and Worthington is more relaxed than in his stiff star turns in Avatar and Terminator Salvation, so fans of the actors may more readily overlook the unsteady nature of their work.

But it adds to a general feeling that the film's sole ambition is to be average.

That feeling is reinforced by Jamie Bell and Genesis Rodriguez as first-time thieves who are also a romantic couple. They banter, flirt, and tease each other as they try to pull off an incredibly complex robbery, straining credulity while providing comic relief.

Ed Harris emerges eventually as an evil businessman, his cold, steely gaze apparently airlifted in from another, better picture. Like Harris, Anthony Mackie gives a straightforward, confident performance as a former compatriot of Worthington, which clashes to a degree with the anti-realism otherwise on display.

Kyra Sedgwick does an extended cameo as a local news reporter, perhaps an attempt to add further levity to a would-be thriller. Edward Burns wears a suit and delivers his lines in a professional manner.

The narrative framework, by the way, is that Worthington is a former police officer who was convicted of a crime and has now escaped from prison, taking refuge in a fancy high-rise hotel before stepping out onto a narrow ledge and threatening to commit suicide. It's all a deception -- a plot point given away in the first few minutes -- to camouflage an elaborate plan to prove his innocence.

While the premise offers the hint of clever twists to come, they never arrive. In sum, the movie is as generic as its title.

Man on a Ledge opens wide across the U.S. today. Check local listings for theaters and showtimes.