I don’t normally like to spoil a movie’s ending, but I’m going to go ahead and tell you that in Man on a Ledge, the guy on the ledge jumps! But in a movie that has as many twists and turns as this one, that’s not really much of a spoiler.
Lydia Mercer (Elizabeth Banks) tries to talk Nick Cassidy (Sam Worthington) down in "Man on a Ledge."
You can’t really blame Nick Cassidy (Sam Worthington) for wanting to go out like that. Especially when you consider that it wasn’t long ago that he was a respected police officer who now finds himself in prison for supposedly stealing a nearly priceless diamond from the Donald Trump-like David Englander (played with voracious villainy by Ed Harris). Cassidy’s reputation is further tarnished when he uses his father’s funeral as a means of escaping from prison, embarrassing his brother Joey (Jamie Bell) and other friends and family in the process.
Knowing he will eventually be captured, Cassidy has no choice but to check in to a fancy New York City hotel, have room service deliver a hearty last meal and climb out onto the ledge to proclaim his innocence. Having recently dealt with a similar suicide situation, fellow cop Lydia Mercer (Elizabeth Banks) is called to the scene to talk him down. It doesn’t take long for her to suspect there’s more to this story than Cassidy (or anyone else) is revealing.
Angie (Génesis Rodríguez) wears a really tight black body suit. I think she's also trying to break into a vault or something.
As Cassidy’s story unravels (along with the nerves of pretty much everyone else involved), some strange occurrences begin to develop across the street – in Englander’s headquarters. There we find Joey and his beautiful girlfriend Angie (Génesis Rodríguez, who looks like one of those incredibly hot women from Telemundo soap operas because she is one of those incredibly hot women from Telemundo soap operas) clumsily attempting to pull off a Mission: Impossible-like heist without the secret agent expertise.
As the pieces fall into place, we begin to see that Cassidy may actually be innocent, while Englander is as despicable as they come despite a public perception that portrays him as a businessman who has weathered the storm of a tough economy. And just as Cassidy and Englander are not who we first think they are, Joey and Angie’s elaborate scheme is also not motivated purely by the desire to obtain a piece of Englander’s wealth. But pretty much nothing is as it appears to be in Man on a Ledge, which gradually becomes more apparent as police, news reporters (even an uber-Caucasian reporter played by Kyra Sedgwick has the comically ethnic name Suzie Morales) and anyone close to Cassidy get closer and closer to the truth of what’s actually at hand.
So by the time Cassidy finally takes the plunge, the result is not as morbid as you (or the ever-growing group of curious onlookers) might expect. And once the proverbial smoke clears, we see that Cassidy’s prison break plot was even more thoroughly planned than it first seems, with yet another huge twist before the credits role.
Man on a Ledge. Directed by Asger Leth. Starring Sam Worthington, Elizabeth Banks, Jamie Bell, Anthony Mackie, Génesis Rodríguez and Ed Harris. Rated PG-13. www.manonaledge.com.
Review by Jonathan Williams