Title: Man on a Ledge

Opens: January 27, 2012

As an action-adventure movie, “Man on a Ledge” succeeds only partly: by providing some tension when an ex-cop who has been convicted of the crime of stealing a $40 million diamond goes out on the ledge of New York’s Roosevelt Hotel 25 stories in the air. The trouble is that much of the action–particularly the busy goings-on across the street from which the title man on a ledge wants to distract the police–remains stable when it should be ratcheted up. That’s not all: the dialogue is as corny as Kansas in August, the young woman who serves as hostage negotiator has hair that always remains in place from the time she is awakened, there is only one newscaster providing visuals to the adventure in our city of eight million, and we find out early on that there is little chance that the man will plunge to his death.

The movie, which is directed by documentarian Asger Leth whose “Ghosts of Cité Soleil” deals with gangs in that Haitian slum, finds Nick Cassidy (Sam Worthington) near the beginning of a 25-year sentence for stealing the diamond from its owner, real estate tycoon David Englander (Ed Harris). He is determined to prove his innocence. Escaping from Sing Sing prison in upstate New York, he checks into the Roosevelt Hotel under the name of Joe Walker, wipes all the prints from his room where he has eaten what could be taken as his last meal, and climbs out on ledge, quickly encouraging an audience of hundreds who seem split 50/50 on whether he should jump. Cop Jack Dougherty (Ed Burns) arrives on the scene trying to talk the man out of jumping only to agree to bring in hostage negotiator Lydia Mercer (Elizabeth Banks), who feels guilty for failing to prevent a rookie cop’s descent off the Brooklyn Bridge a month earlier.

Among the implausible notions is Cassidy’s ultimatum: that if Lydia Mercer does not show up within one half hour, he would jump. He even gets the count-down to ten seconds, albeit slowly, though he has no idea that Mercer is already in the room ready to go out herself on the ledge. What would he do if she had not dressed so quickly?

Much of the action takes place across the street where Cassidy’s loyal brother, Joey (Jamie Bell) and her girlfriend Angie (Genesis Rodriguez) are into a mission-impossible act to find the evidence needed to exonerate Nick. The hostile banter between the two, who if caught could wind up in Sing Sing for a dozen years, is yet another implausibility, just as the friendlier dialogue between Nick and Lydia becomes tiresome, perhaps encouraging the movie audience to yell “jump” as well.

The film may have been inspired by an incident involving John William Ware, a twenty-six-year-old native of Southampton, NY, who committed suicide on July 26, 1938. He leaped from a window ledge of the seventeenth floor of the Gotham Hotel at 5th Avenue and 55th Street in Manhattan. He was the son of a Long Island express agent, his eleven-hour dilemma before jumping having held three hundred New York City police officers at bay.

Rated PG-13. 102 minutes (c) 2012 by Harvey Karten, Member, New York Film Critics Online

Overall – C+