In New York City, Nick Cassady (Sam Worthington) checks in to the Roosevelt Hotel under the false name of Walker, goes to his hotel room on the 21st floor, and climbs on the ledge, apparently ready to commit suicide. The crowd below sees him and calls the police. They isolate the area, with Dante Marcus (Titus Welliver) controlling the crowd, while Jack Dougherty (Edward Burns) tries to talk with Nick. However, Nick says he will only speak to negotiator Lydia Mercer (Elizabeth Banks), who is on a leave of absence after failing to convince a depressed policeman not to jump from the Brooklyn Bridge a month earlier.Lydia arrives at the hotel room and manages to acquire Nick's fingerprints from a cigarette they share. Dougherty has them analyzed and discovers that Nick is an ex-policeman who was arrested for stealing a $40 million diamond from businessman David Englander (Ed Harris). Nick has escaped from prison, where he was serving 25 years for the heist, after being allowed to attend his father's funeral a week earlier. Nick, however, says he is innocent and reveals that Englander used to employ cops to protect his multi-floor jewelry business. One day, while Nick was escorting Englander and the diamond, he was knocked unconscious by two men in ski masks. He awakened to find that Englander had framed him for stealing the diamond in order to get the insurance money, as he lost $30 million with Lehman Brothers and more money when the real estate market crashed.Unbeknownst to the police, Nick is merely distracting them while his brother Joey (Jamie Bell) and Joey's girlfriend Angie (Genesis Rodriguez) break into Englander's upper floor jewelry vault in the building across the street to steal the diamond and prove Nick's innocence. Meanwhile, Dougherty informs Marcus of Nick's identity, and Marcus orders the security of the jewelry store to check the vault. Although Joey and Angie are able to evade them, they don't find the diamond. They set off the alarms, tricking Englander into retrieving the diamond from another safe that they did not know about, and return to his office, where they ambush him and steal the diamond at gunpoint.
Meanwhile, Nick's ex-partner, Mike Ackerman (Anthony Mackie), arrives at the hotel with evidence that Nick is planning something and demands to be allowed into the hotel room. Lydia does not trust him, and Dougherty backs her up. Ackerman claims he has found bomb schematics in Nick's hideout and is convinced that he will detonate an explosive somewhere. While the crowd is evacuated by the anti-bomb squad, Lydia, believing in Nick's innocence, calls Internal Affairs and discovers that three of the cops employed by Englander were suspected of being corrupt; a deceased officer called Walker, Ackerman, and Marcus.
Englander calls Marcus, one of the men who helped him frame Nick, and has him capture Joey and Angie, but they have already given the diamond to a hotel concierge who passes it to Nick as he is being chased by the tactical team throughout the hotel. Marcus chases Nick to the roof where he orders Lydia to be arrested for obstruction. Englander brings Joey and Angie, and threatens to throw Joey off the roof if Nick does not give him the diamond. Nick does, and Englander leaves. Meanwhile, Lydia escapes custody and rushes back to the roof.
There, Marcus holds Joey at gunpoint in order to force Nick to jump off the roof, silencing him, when Ackerman arrives and shoots Marcus who in turn shoots back at Ackerman, wounding him. Nick rushes to Ackerman's side, and Ackerman apologizes, claiming that although he helped Englander to fake the diamond's theft, he never knew Nick would be framed. Marcus survives as he is wearing a bulletproof vest and is preparing to kill Nick when Lydia arrives and shoots him.
Nick jumps from the roof onto an air mattress set up earlier by the police, catches up to Englander before he enters in his limo, beats him, and pulls the missing diamond from his pocket, revealing the truth. Englander is arrested, while Nick is proved innocent and released after intervention by the governor. He meets Joey, Angie, and Lydia at a bar, where he introduces Lydia to the hotel concierge, who is Nick's father—having faked his death in order to help his son. Joey proposes to Angie with a diamond ring stolen from Englander's vault, and they all celebrate together.
Man on a Ledge Movie Plot :
As a police psychologist works to talk down an ex-con who is threatening to jump from a Manhattan hotel rooftop, the biggest diamond heist ever committed is in motion...
Release date: 27 January 2012
User Votes: 6.6
Genres: Crime, Thriller
Runtime: 102 minutes
Motion Picture Rating (MPAA): Rated PG-13 for violence and brief strong language
Filming Locations: New York, USA
Production Co: Summit Entertainment, Di Bonaventura Pictures
Also Known As: Al borde del abismo
Box Office :
Budget:$42,000,000 (estimated)
Opening Weekend:$8,001,932 (USA) (29 January 2012) (2998 Screens)
Gross:$18,600,911 (USA) (26 February 2012)
Director: Asger Leth
Writer: Pablo F. Fenjves
Stars: Sam Worthington, Elizabeth Banks, Jamie Bell
Viewers Comments :
4 January 2012 | by MosH (MI, USA)
As you'd expect, "Man on a Ledge" is a Swiss-cheese plotted heist and "prove his innocence" movie but taken as just that, it's quite an enjoyable movie. I suppose after having seen enough of these kinds of movies, I shouldn't expect perfection in how every plot thread is tied up since very few movies manage it. However, what the movie does excellently is setup the plot and build up the situation perfectly. Just starting as a literal Man on a Ledge, we see subtle layers added until we get this full on crescendo of diamond heists, negotiators, cops, convicts, bad guys, good guys all happening on in a single block in New York. So, given that you're willing to suppress your tingling plot-hole sense, it can be an enjoyable movie.
The cast is quite good and the acting and tension is par for the course. The leads Sam Worthington and Elizabeth Banks do a great job. Seeing Worthington as an ex-NY cop, ex-convict and Banks as a negotiator/psychologist with a past is surprising on paper but they manage to pull it off very well. However, Jamie Bell is one of the heist-team but his opposite who plays Angie make for some cringe-worthy comedy, like some Sofia Vergara slapstick in the middle of a tense situation. Ed Harris looks emaciated but equally sinister as the villain and there are a host other minor NY characters.
I can hear the Hollywood pitch for the movie in my head, "it's like The Negotiator combined with The Italian Job but happens in NY and instead of a hostage situation we have a jumper." And, essentially it's just that – a movie that heavily recalls other movies from the past except perhaps for the Man on a Ledge. On a side note, it seems that every NY movie nowadays has a reference to the OWS movement and what a typical OWS protester might look like.
The movie is at its best when it clamors for our hero who desperate and is fighting all odds to clear his name as he shouts from his ledge, "I am innocent and this is my retrial." The movie is at its worst when it's ungainly roping in all the plot threads it cast out but can't seem to put it together. Overall, it's a good enough movie for people who like these kinds of movies. If you've caught yourself bitterly berating the many plot holes in heist movies, maybe this isn't for you.
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