The Ledge

There has already been a man-on-a-ledge movie released this year, but now another film is released with basically the same idea only not as compelling or much fun to watch.

Police negotiator Hollis (Terrence Howard) is assigned to talk a man down from a building ledge. Hotel manager Gavin (Charlie Hunnam) has an hour to make the choice between his own life or that of Shana (Liv Tyler), the married woman with whom he has been having an affair.

As a test of faith, Joe (Patrick Wilson), a fundamentalist Christian and Shana's husband, has forced Gavin onto the ledge of a tall building to prove his love.

What seems to be an intriguing and interesting film turns out to be dull, turgid and preachy - with the problem resting more on the heavy handed script than the acting. Writer/Director Matthew Chapman's screenplay consists mostly of stale, boring discussions about the existence of God and faith as a whole. It does not help that the arguments appear to be very one sided, instead of being balanced. This makes all of the characters extremely unlikeable as they come across as being very arrogant and self-centred.

The acting is the highlight of the film, even if they do not have much to play with. Hunnam and Howard work well together during the ledge scenes, while Wilson is credible as the angry preacher. Even Christopher Gorham gives an interesting portrayal of a gay man who is less offended by Joe's homophobia than Gavin, his straight roommate. Only Liv Tyler lets the cast down with an unemotional performance.

It is hard to understand why this film was chosen to be shown at last year's Sundance Film Festival. The drama of the story is so uncompelling that by the end of the film everyone will want all the characters to just die.

The only extras included are the standard trailer and an overlong documentary. The documentary interviews Wilson, Hunnam and Howard about their roles in the film and about the story. But this feature also turns out to be very preachy, especially when interviewing Terrence Howard who also produced the movie.