Man On A Ledge (2012)

It must be hard to be Sam Worthington. He's at the mercy of an insane person.

Think about it. His career has to wait for James Cameron, that anal-retentive, off-his-rocker-crazy perfectionist who takes 20 years between each movie in order for technology to catch up with his fever dream visions of making stuff that isn't real look still-not-real-but-boy-is-it-pretty-and-shiny. And Sam ain't doing jack in the meantime. The only time anyone cared about Sam Worthington was when he was in "Avatar," and it would appear that the only time anyone will care about him again is whenever Cameron makes the sequel. That's rough.

That may be a bit harsh, but come on. The biggest thing the dude's done in the 4 years since "Avatar" are the "Clash of The Titans" reboots. That is not exactly prestigious. And now we have "Man On A Ledge," which doesn't thrill and entertain so much as confirm my suspicion that Sam Worthington is trying guilt-trip James Cameron into making "Avatar 2" faster so that he can have a career.

 "Do it, Cameron! Do it or I'll jump! I swear I'll jump!"

Whatever. "Avatar 2" is still probably going to be crap, just like the first one was. Maybe this time it'll be a 4 hour long rip-off of "The Postman." Which would actually make that movie shorter, come to think of it.

I'm going to tell you straight out, for "Man On A Ledge," I'm going to spoil the crap out of this movie. I'm doing it because I don't care, and honestly, neither do you. You just don't know it yet. It's a dumb film that is under the impression that it's clever. Even with Ed Harris as the villain, which under any other circumstance would be awesome, it manages to also be boring. And the reason it's boring is because, going back to the first point, it's dumb. Although there might be something to be said about the entertainment factor of watching a train wreck.

The only way for me to try and make sense of any of this mess is to break it down into steps.

1) Businessman (Ed Harris) loses a lot of money during the economic collapse.
2) He sells his gigantic diamond to make some money to survive.
3) In an effort not to be humiliated, he frames a seemingly random cop (Sam Worthington) and says that he stole the diamond, cut it up into many pieces, and sold them.
4) Cop is convicted of this and goes to jail.
5) Cop and his brother set up this elaborate heist to break the cop out of jail and steal the diamond from the businessman, in order to prove that he didn't steal it the first time. Among other things, this plan involves the cop creating a huge distraction by standing on a ledge, and their father faking his own death and becoming a bellhop at the hotel across the street from the businessman's building. (Oddly enough, the father bit makes more sense since the only reason the ledge thing is necessary was to make a crowd cheer in order to make enough noise to cover up an explosion. If that's your plan, try harder.)
6) Absurdly, the plan actually works, up to the point where the brother and his girlfriend (two people who are not career criminals yet are pulling of "Ocean's 11" style heist-aerobics) find out that the diamond is not in the safe they thought it was in. At this point their plan is officially tits-up. Everything past this point couldn't have been planned by them.
7) The businessman, seeing that his security measures performed admirably and exactly as intended despite being penetrated, decides to take the diamond out of his super high tech safe that the thieves couldn't possibly break into and instead puts it in his pocket because...um...because...well...he's dumb.
8) The brother and his girlfriend break into the businessman's office and wait for him, since there is apparently no security leading to his office (what?), and steal the diamond off of him. Keep in mind, they did not know that he a) had another safe or b) had the diamond on him. And even if they did know that (which they couldn't) their entire plan hinges on him removing the diamond from the safe after the break-in. Which, even as flimsy plans go, is a stretch and relies on the businessman being galactically stupid.
9) In a beautify orchestrated series of hand-offs and tag team switcharoos involving their dad undercover as a bellhop, the brother manages to get the diamond into the hands of the cop.
10) Using crooked cops and a gun, the businessman gets the diamond back, making the whole switcharoo stuff pointless.
11) Using dumb luck and convenience, the cop manages to punch the businessman in the face and shows the diamond to everyone in a big crowd including the media, which apparently clears him from wrongdoing, exonerates him, and makes him a free man. They all have a drink.

And if there was any kind of sense or logic in this movie, step 12 would be that he goes to jail for stealing the diamond. Because here's the special thing about that little plan. Yes, it's true that it may clear you from that first charge when you hadn't done it. That's true. But there's still that second charge. You know, that time when you actually did do it? Yeah, you're going to jail for that. You are so sued. That would be some kind of record, wouldn't it? Going to jail for doing a crime you did to prove you hadn't done the exact same crime before?

He should write a book called "If I Stole The Diamond."

I mean, look at all the things he could be arrested for, which he absolutely 100% did do. There's escaping from jail, assaulting two police officers, creating a public disturbance, being an accessory to a robbery, assaulting a SWAT team member, assaulting the businessman, and destruction of public and private property which would probably factor in the hundreds of thousands of dollars of damage, if not millions of dollars. And let's not forget that he and his brother made, planted and detonated explosives on the roof of a building in New York City, which I'm sure would get him prosecuted under some kind of anti-terrorism act. This dude is going up the creek for sure.

But no, it's a movie, so proving that you were the victim once automatically clears you from any wrong-doing you do later. I like to call that the "Lisbeth Salander Defense." And it bugs the crap out of me every time it happens. Even when it's emotionally moving and what we'd probably like to see happen, like in "A Time To Kill."

But that just doesn't fly with me. As strong and sexy of a defense as Matty McC can give, Samuel L. Jackson totally shot Keifer Sutherland to hell, Noomi Rapace gladly tried to kill her father with an axe, and Sam Worthington did enough here to put him away for a few decades. Or at least as long as they put away weed dealers. Which is about the same, since justice is awesome like that.

"Come on, honey. Let's commit some crimes to prove our innocence."

But more to the point, there's some other utterly perplexing stuff going on here. Go back and look at #2. The businessman sold the diamond. That's how he got the money to keep him afloat during hard times. I don't think I'm misremembering anything with that, because they even say during one of the conspiratorial exposition scenes something like "Out of nowhere he gets $40 million. He's back on top." So that would imply that he sold it. Besides, if he didn't, why would he hide it? And what was the $40 million from if not the diamond? So that brings up a very important question that I don't remember the movie ever answering: How does he have the diamond in his safe if he sold it?

Perhaps he bought it back from whoever he sold it to, but I can't recall that ever being mentioned. And yes, it's true that I was kind of bored by "Man On A Ledge," but I wasn't bored to the point of missing out on a plot point like that. My lone vodka and tonic isn't going to make me miss it. I just think they either didn't think it was important enough to mention, or they just plain screwed up. I'll let you speculate, but you can go ahead and guess which scenario I find more likely.

"I have money. Don't ask questions."

There are two ways to go about looking at a movie like "Man On A Ledge." The first way of looking at it, and I think this is the manner in which both the filmmakers want you to watch it and the way the average movie goer actually does watch it, is that it's just a movie and we should all just let it roll over us and not worry about silly things like plot and making sense and all those trivial things that I get called pretentious for pointing out.

The second way to look at a movie is that yes, it does matter if a movie makes sense in its own universe. I'm not saying that every movie needs to have both feet firmly planted on the ground. I loved "Machete" for crap's sake, and that movie had its feet so far off the ground it could be hired to do repairs on low-orbiting satellites. I'm not saying a movie can't be fun or ridiculous or not worry about trivial stuff in the plot.

But a movie like "Man On A Ledge," which is obviously proud of its caper and working really hard to make a lot of pieces fit together throughout several *GOTCHA* moments can't really excuse itself by throwing its chips in with the outlandish absurdity of movies that were never meant to be taken seriously in the first place. I really believe "Man On A Ledge" wants to be totally serious.

Alright then, "Man On A Ledge." You want to be taken seriously? Then get ready to be looked at as such. You're proud of your caper? Fine. Explain to me how in the hell these seemingly average people with no mentioned training besides "breaking into nice houses back in high school" are able to pull of these heists like Ethan Freaking Hunt in "Mission: Impossible." Where did they get the gadgets? How did they get the intel on Ed Harris' high-tech vault? How are they able to even remotely pull off this insane job when Genesis Rodriguez's character, in fact all of them, are too stupid to have the foresight to realize that when you have a red-tinted flashlight, everything you're looking at is going to be tinted red, including wires you have to cut? Why did she apparently not even study the wiring diagram to know exactly which wire to cut? Instead she has to rely on Sam Worthington to coach her through it via radio, but she just ends up having to guess in the end anyway? Are you for real? Seriously, her jackass boyfriend just advices her to "Cut the reddest looking one." What a pro. Glad you planned that out. Why does the heat sensor in the vault room not pick them up when they've entered despite having taken no measures to counter it? Why does the floor sensor not set off the alarm since they're just walking around casually? Why is there a conveniently located human-sized ventilation shaft located on the ceiling precisely above the safe, leading to an easily accessible opening in the room next to it which is located ON THE GROUND?

Do I even need to bring up the question as to why she needs a flashlight when it's clearly lit in there?

This could actually be a pretty good parody of a heist movie if it weren't taking itself so seriously.

THE BOTTOM LINE - "Man On A Ledge," while not necessarily the worst made or produced film I've seen this year, is probably one of the more irritating in terms of how much more credit it gives itself than what it actually deserves. This is a dumb, dumb movie that makes no logical sense in even the simplest terms, and for a heist movie, which as a genre is one that depends on rigorous attention to detail in order to properly work, that's a big problem.

The Hunger Games (2012)

Sometimes I really wonder what the criteria for "the next big thing is," because to me it seems really inconsistent. Why is a boring story about a bland, useless sack of teenage sociopathy having to choose between a possessive, borderline rapist stalker and a dull, uncaring asshole of a monster (because those are obviously her only two possible choices) so popular? Is it just because teens are told that it's the new thing, and that they have to like if they want to be cool?

I think about stuff like this because sometimes something will come out and become massively popular, and I can't figure what it is that made it so huge when I'd seen it done before, but the most that happened was perhaps a bit of a cult following. Take "Twilight" for example. That was not the first time someone thought to themselves "Hey, vampires are sexy." The first notable example one would probably think of would be "Interview with The Vampire" back in '91, which is actually a good vampire story, as opposed to Edward and Bella's "epic," and far more heartbreaking and tragic, but don't forget the chairman of the board himself, Dracula. And I'm not just talking about the Coppola version. Even the original Bela Lugosi film is actually pretty sexy. And it does it while remembering the vampire is A BAD GUY. What a novel concept, right?

But where were the Louis backpacks and LeStat posters on the walls of teenage girls? LeStat was way more of a bad boy than Edward freaking Cullen, not to mention better looking and more charismatic. Oh, and he was actually bad, which is a nice touch. Not to mention Antonio Bandaras' character of Armand, who Jacob Black wishes he could be as gay as. Where were the "Team Lugosi" t-shirts? Where were the soccer moms fantasizing about Christopher Lee?

"Bitch, you couldn't even handle this."

The point here is "Why Twilight?" It's been done before, and done much better. At least those other films had the decency to get vampire lore right.

And now we have "The Hunger Games," another "young adult" book series. Now, I didn't even hear of this until the movie was set to come out, but my friends who read it informed me that it was very good. Then again, I was told the same of "Twilight." Then again, I was also told the same of "Harry Potter," which actually was quite good. So...coin toss?

The thing that struck me most about "The Hunger Games" was the story. This was because when it was described to me the first time, the very next words out of my mouth were "Soooo it's "Battle Royale," huh?" And without fail the person describing it to me said "What's that?" By then I was in full snob-mode and said with a fair amount of incredulity "You've never seen "Battle Royale?" Oh man."

Of course they'd never seen "Battle Royale." Why would they have seen it? An actual good movie where you have to read subtitles? Forget that. I need to catch up on "Jersey Shore."

Ok, I know what this looks like but seriously, it's a good flick. What? It is!

Fans of "The Hunger Games" have probably heard enough about "Battle Royale" to make them sick at this point, because I know that people like myself certainly brought it up enough to make sure that they'd never watch it, simply out of spite. But there is a reason we bring it up, and that's because it's pretty freaking identical to "The Hunger Games," only it's not backed by a raving mob of fangirls and soccer moms.

Which brings me back to my original point once again: Why this instead of "Battle Royale?" What's the big difference?

Ah. I see.

Oh right. Heaven forbid our violence be disturbing. Gotta get the kiddies in the theaters to watch people KILL EACH OTHER. That's good old fashioned family entertainment. As long as the girl and boy hook up at the end, then you can do whatever the hell you want and call it teenage oriented. You know who else had a happy ending? Mickey and Mallory from "Natural Born Killers!" Let's show the kids that! It's a romance!

Still a better love story than "Twilight."

Geez, that's the longest opening tirade yet. Should probably talk about the movie I saw at some point, huh? I suppose I'll get to it, seeing as it's what I do here.

As is probably evident, I went into "The Hunger Games" with the mindset of "Okay, movie. Impress me. Show me what all the fuss is about." Maybe not the healthiest attitude, to be sure, but it's hard to not be a tad cynical with something this huge. And that's particularly true when the fan base is partly composed of the teenage demographic which, let's face it, has the absolute worst taste in movies. So yeah, I was skeptical.

After seeing "The Hunger Games," I'm left at something of an impasse. While I thought that it was a well put together film, in fact it's made far better than most teen blockbusters are, at the end of the day I still don't get the "why this" aspect of it. Is it good? Yeah, it's pretty good. Is it a sweeping, multi-billion dollar saga to rival "Lord of The Rings?" No. The story is pretty weak sauce. Having not read the trilogy, I don't know where it goes from here, but as for the first installment, I'm not picking up much of a sense of epic.

Before I say enough negative stuff to give the impression that I didn't like "The Hunger Games," let me be clear: It's a very well made film. It really is. The visual style is quite striking, albeit a bit shaky and jittery with the camera at times, and it does do a very good job at transporting you to a different place. If "The Hunger Games" does one thing quite well it's to immerse the viewer in the world they have created. Now, whether or not the world makes sense is another matter, but it still immerses you.

And when it has to be dramatic and emotionally charged, for the most part it is pulled off very well. In particular, the opening 20 minutes is among some of the best dramatic moments, during what is known as "The Reaping," which is just a really sinister way of saying "a lottery." I know some complaints were made about "The Hunger Games" starting off slowly, but to be honest with you I thought that was some of the best stuff in the movie.

Look at that suit. Richard Dawson would be proud.

The first hour focuses on their training and the whole rigamarole behind the game, which is basically a TV show which follows the battle to the death that these kids are forced to participate in. It's essentially "Battle Royale" if it were "Ender's Game" if it took place in ancient Rome as interpreted by "The Running Man." If that makes sense. In any case I found the exploration of the theatricality involved, and the fact that almost everyone involved is totally aware how much of a hollow, flashy, soulless spectacle it is to be the most interesting part of the film.

As far as action goes, despite the shaky cam being abused a bit, for a PG-13 film it did come off as reasonably brutal, at least as far as that rating can take you. I personally think they could have gone a bit further with the violence and kept a PG-13 though. I get the feeling most of that came from the fact that these are kids being killed, and less about what you see. I think a bit more gratuity would have helped the film's impact, but for being PG-13 it was well done. It's just hard to not compare it to the many other films with similar plots, all of them I remember being a hard R rating.

Of course the biggest selling point of any "saga" is the story. In a bit of a surprise, despite my problems concerning the Games themselves (which I'll get to), this is a story that I wouldn't mind seeing the rest of. The reasons for this aren't for the characters, but just the idea of where the plot is going to go next. I'm not invested in the plot so to speak, but I'm interested in the possibilities of where it goes next, if that makes sense.

As far as cast goes, I don't know. Jennifer Lawrence is/was an indie-circuit darling, and supposed to be this rocking Titan of Acting, but honestly for a good portion of the movie I found her to be fairly bland and uninteresting. Most of the time she just kind of stood there with her mouth hanging open looking like she was trying to remember whether or not she set the TiVo to record "Scrubs." It's one thing for Katniss (stupid name #38 for this film) to be scared and speechless but Lawrence just plays her so boring, with the exception of a handful of scenes where she's mad.

"Meh. I'll shoot you with this arrow. I guess."

That was actually the biggest problem for me with Katniss, was that she really didn't display much emotion at all. I kept waiting for her to go off the deep end, and she starts to, but that never really pans out. Even after she's watched her friend die in her arms, which would have been quite moving had it not been kind of forced, and she's had her "MENDOZZA!!!" moment, after that's done she really never gets too upset. What I had been hoping for was for Katniss to pick up her bow, say "All you bastards are dead" and reenact "Rambo: First Blood Part II." Instead she just has a good cry and goes home. Way to protagonize, protagonist.

And the whole time we're being told that Katniss is the great hope of these Games. She's the one that has the best shot at winning, even more so than the trained killers from the rich districts that volunteered for this thing, I'm guessing just because they want to stab something in the face. No, these guys are ranked lower than Katniss to succeed, because she shot an apple.

I got a much bigger kick out of Woody Harrelson as Haymitch (stupid name #65) their mentor and former Hunger Games winner, who has turned into a slopping drunk to deal with the torment of helping send young people off to die. There's some real pain in his performance, and it was quite effective. Even Lenny Kravitz as their producer Cinna (#89) was actually quite good in a similar role. I also thought that the quiet fatalism of Josh Hutcherson as Peeta (#115) had a nice, quiet dignity about it, especially when he starts sabotaging his own chances to make Katniss look better, giving her theoretically better odds at surviving. I liked that, and it would have made for some pretty gripping and dramatic moments if "The Hunger Games" hadn't chickened out on itself.

Yeah, here's where I start having some problems not with the cast or the way the film is made, but the story itself. This could have been a brutal, tragic tale but it really just ends up playing it way too safe, and comes off as blatantly catering to the demographic that it's trying to ensnare. It's odd to say that considering how many young people get slaughtered, but it's the way they handle the ending that really kind of spoiled my experience a bit.

The whole point of these games is that there can be only one winner. Everyone else is going to die. That's the way it's been for 73 years up to this point, and to change it would be stupid, since the entire reason for the games to exist is subjugation of the districts being forced to supply these kids. To change the rules would make the regime look soft, which is against everything they're trying to do. Well, this may be spoiler-heavy for anyone who hasn't seen the movie or read the book, but all you have to do is remember that it's a movie for teens to realize that there's no way that "The Hunger Games" is having either the main character or her love interest die. Because you see, there can be more than one winner. Only there can't. Except when there can be.

THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE!!!! (except when there can totally be more than one)

They try and make it so that the guys running the Hunger Games kind of shoot themselves in the foot by implementing a "two-winner" special rule in an attempt to try and appease rioters in a district that (SHOCK!) had one of their young people killed in the Games, but it really doesn't make any sense. First of all, the entire reason the district was rioting was because one of their children died. But I crunched the numbers, and assuming that the "winning" rate between all the districts is statistically even, that particular district has lost roughly 138 kids over the years to the Hunger Games. Are you telling me that they only now care enough to riot? Was 139 just the final straw? It seems to be the case because it's only now that the regime is scared enough of this rioting to change the rules that have been in place for the better part of a century.

The second reason that doesn't make any sense is the fact that it's really a meaningless gesture for the regime to do for the district that is rioting because the rules are absurdly specific and transparently tailor-made for Katniss and Peeta, who aren't even from the rioting district. Who is this suppose to appease? You think that district is going to be totally okay with the fact that both of some other district's kids made it back when both of their kids are dead? What do they care at that point? They'll still be pissed off.

Thirdly, let's say that they actually succeeded in placating the rioting district with this two-winner amendment. That's rendered completely useless at the end because when Peeta and Katniss are the last ones standing, they revoke it anyway in a "MWAHAHAHAHA!!! WE'RE EVIL!!!" moment which is bashing-your-forehead-on-the-desk-stupid. Did they think the people that were mad weren't going to get mad AGAIN when you overturn the thing you did to make them not mad?

And finally, why is the regime even bothering in the first place with trying to make everyone happy? You have abducted children as young as 8 years old to FIGHT TO THE DEATH FOR YOUR AMUSEMENT. I don't think any amount of PR is going to get around the fact that you are an evil, tyrannical bunch of douchebags. When the hell did the notion of doing someone else a solid ever seem like part of your business model?! I just have to keep going back to the question "Why do they care if people are happy?" They have to know that the districts hate them.

"Jennifer! I'm glad you're here! I think my wig is plotting against me, and I'm freaking out."

You would also think that a clearly advanced society would not be forced to do these barbaric acts to subjugate its people in the first place, since the technology they are using in the Games could easily be used to utterly crush any resistance immediately, considering that based on what I saw, they literally have the power to instantly create any damn thing they want. But given the fact that in the city they're pulling stuff out of the aether, while people in the districts appear to have never seen a flush toilet before, I'm not sure that a rebellion is a real threat to this government. It would be like the hordes of Mordor versus a country full of pandas. I think the pandas would surrender.

At least it wouldn't be a threat if they didn't have these comically villainous games which unsurprisingly do little except guarantee that the Districts are never going to not be thinking about rebelling. I guess I'm just not seeing the Big Picture of the plan here. I mean, it just seems so over-the-top cartoonishly evil. Although that may have to do with Donald Sutherland and his eyebrows.

When you look like a cartoon villain, I guess cartoonish villainy is inevitable.

This whole "changing the rules" thing really tainted my impression of the film. It came off as insultingly convenient, almost like they panicked halfway through the final act and were forced to pull something out of their asses to make it so they could both get out of this alive. While these are valid complaints to bring up, the reason for it lies in the fact that it's a movie for teens, and we can't have dark stuff happening to make it so the two attractive people don't hook up at the end. Of course the end of "The Hunger Games" implies that darker things are in store, but it still felt like a cop out.

On an up note, I did appreciate how Katniss and Peeta aren't really "together" at the end. That would have been the easy way to go, and while they dip their toe into those well-tred waters, it's not all the way there. It's more of a lie that's grown into something they both are contemplating making real, which is much better. But since one of the last things you see in the movie is Jennifer Lawrence and Liam Helmsworth staring intensely at each other across a crowd while she's holding hands with Josh Hutcherson, I'm guessing that "The Hunger Games: Catching Fire" will involve a love triangle. Because we can't have a movie for teens without THAT. Heaven forbid.

THE BOTTOM LINE - I spent a lot of time complaining about the things in "The Hunger Games" that bugged me because I felt they took away from what was otherwise a pretty solid flick. Am I going to read the books? Probably not. Will I watch the others when they make them? Sure. Would I still rather be watching "Battle Royale?" Yup. Even so, Recommended.