Man on a Ledge

I didn't think Man on a Ledge would be good, but I fully expected to enjoy watching it. A turned-on-its-head heist movie with Elizabeth Banks? What could go wrong? A terrible script, that's what.

Man on a Ledge is another installment into the ever-bulging canon of Movies That Should Only Be Watched on an Airplane, if then. That's too bad, because the premise sounds great. Sam Worthington plays Nick Cassidy, a man who rents a room on the top floor of Manhattan's Roosevelt Hotel, strolls out onto the window ledge and threatens to commit suicide all over Fifth Avenue. On a weekday.

But it's a ruse, you see. He's not actually despondent, he's creating a diversion so that his brother, Joey (Jamie Bell), and Joey's girlfriend, Angie (Genesis Rodriguez), can sneak into a building across the street and rob a $40 million diamond from an evil businessman (Ed Harris).

So far, so good.

Good actors -- especially Jamie Bell, who's done such great things in The Eagle and Jane Eyre -- and an interesting plot. But things quickly go south. Not only because the actors were apparently discouraged from acting well, but because the plot is pointlessly confusing and contrived to the point of being laughable.

It did not have to be this way. The premise could easily have been turned into a story that, if completely outside of the realm of possibility, at least makes sense in Movie World.

Unfortunately for everyone in involved, especially the audience, the writer subscribes to the school of "If You Can't Make it Good, Make it Confusing and Maybe They Won't Notice?" You've heard of this writer. His name is Pablo Fenjves. "What?" you say, "I've never heard of this Fenjves with the multicultural name." Ah yes, that's because his most famous work was written under the name OJ Simpson. Yes, my friends, Fenjves best-selling work was ghostwriting OJ's controversial If I Did It, the "hypothetical" narrative of his murdering activities.

Clearly this guy doesn't have a history of aiming for quality.

Anyway, this movie, Man on a Ledge. Nick claims the only person he will speak to is Elizabeth Banks, who plays a suicide talker-down for the NYPD. She quickly discovers that Nick is actually an ex-cop, one who has only recently been convicted of stealing, wait for it, the very diamond that's over in Ed Harris's safe. Obviously Nick has been framed and needs to clear his name.

The frame-up goes deep, but the NYPD employs many, many people, so I found it a little weird that everyone involved in the plot would coincidentally have responded to a random suicide jumper in Midtown. I won't say more, just in case you obstinately refuse to take my advice and insist on seeing it.

You have been warned.

The very worst thing about Man on a Ledge is the final scene. It's so incredibly lame, like something Garry Marshall would have written. It made me angry, and it made me angry that these fantastic actors (Bell, Banks, Harris and also Anthony Mackie) decided to get involved in such a mess.

The only good thing here is the nauseating shots, the first-person sensation of being on that ledge at a deathly height above New York City. But you can get that on a Ferris wheel.