Gavin (Charlie Hunnam) is on a ledge. Why is he on a ledge? He'll tell you why he's on a ledge. Well. actually he'll tell Hollis (Terrence Howard), the detective assigned to talk him down. But you see, this is no ordinary suicide bid. There's a reason Gavin is on the ledge, and it has a lot to do with girl next door Shana (Liv Tyler), and her husband, fundamentalist Christian Joe (Patrick Wilson).
Yes, The Ledge is billed as a thriller, but in reality it's not too thrilling. What we have here is Gavin perched on a ledge, recounting a quite ordinary story to another guy. The "twist" at the end is really more of the logical conclusion to the plot. There's even a side story thrown in for Hollis, but it has nothing to do with the story on the whole, other than affirming the moral message that's tacked together at the end.
You see, this movie isn't about a ledge, the two male leads are so adamant about their religious beliefs, or lack thereof, and take every opportunity to explain why the other is an asshole. Obviously it's more biased towards the atheist side, and in all Matthew Chapman seems to have been really eager to wave his viewpoint in everyone's face, tacking a substandard romance thriller plot into the mix.
For some reason The Ledge seems to me like what The Room would have been if slightly more competent people had made it. Live Tyler drifts through in monotone like Lisa, Charlie Humman is clearly a better actor than Johnny Wiseau, but not too much. His character is still an obnoxious asshole who I could not even force myself to like. The whole plot is simplistic, but dressed up by stretching out the narrative and introducing plot points that go nowhere, again, much like The Room.
So yeah, The Ledge is not great. The performances range from bland to obnoxious, the plot is either dragged out or quite pointless. Still, it's better than The Room.
My rating: 1/5
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