Just the Ticket #41: Wrath Of the Diamonds

If you've been following my reviewing career for any length of time, you may remember my review of The Ledge (for the nostalgic and the noobian alike, here it is), a movie which came out on home video--uh-oh, must be careful not to date myself; that term hasn't been used since the days before VHS was replaced by the DVD/Blu-Ray combo pack (and for a bit of commentary on the combo pack, click here)--about the same time that today's critical selection was to be released in theaters. I always laugh at the cheap direct-to-video knockoffs that release concurrently with their big-budget theater counterparts. Before I get into today's review, here's a list of theatrical/knockoff pairs to amuse you:

1. Resident Evil: Apocalypse had Return Of the Living Dead: Necropolis
2. Snakes On A Plane had Snakes On A Train
3. Peter Jackson's King Kong had King Of the Lost World
4. Jurassic Park had Carnosaur
5. Transformers and Revenge Of the Fallen had Transmorphers and Transmorphers: Fall Of Man

Ahhh, copyright evasion, how I love thee. Let me count the ways. Well, including The Ledge and it's bigger budget companion, Man On A Ledge, that makes at least six. On with the show....

Documentary director Asgar Leth tries to make it look like there's a lot happening in Man On A Ledge, but what little story there is to the film doesn't add up to much in terms of impact. An escaped convict (Sam Worthington, Clash Of the Titans' Perseus) pretends quite transparently to want to end it all on a hotel ledge while his brother (Jamie Bell, of the above-mentioned King Kong) is across the street, stealing the diamond Wortington's character was framed for stealing prior to the events of the film. Just so it can be said there is a developing relationship in there somewhere, a stereotypical scarred, alcoholic hostage negotiator (Slither's Elisabeth Banks, who wakes up with a hangover--and a strong resemblance to Chelsea Handler--at film's beginning) is called in to talk him down. Joining the long list of nominees for the Most Obvious Bad Guy Ever award are a devious jewelry mogul (Ed Harris, A History Of Violence) and a dirty SWAT commander (Titus Welliver, who played ruthless IRA leader Jimmy O on Sons Of Anarchy and had a bit part as a greedy Hawk-Vessen on NBC's Grimm) named Dante Marcus. By the way, never trust a guy with multiple first names and never ignore typecasting...unless you want to be naively surprised.

Most of Worthington's building-hopping stunts are pretty cool, and his Aussie accent slips out frequently, bringing to mind a Mad Max-era Mel Gibson. But otherwise, Man On A Ledge is predictable, shallow, over-cast (Edward Burns, Kyra Sedgewick, and even Ed Harris as the main villain seem like afterthoughts who get sidelined by Banks and Worthington's weak dynamic), over-acted (Worthington especially seems to be trying too hard to be blatant without being obvious--now where is that damned thesaurus?--while Welliver succeeds at obviously being uncomfortable on a big-screen set), and over-scripted (even the heroes' response to hiccups in the planned heist feel rehearsed, and the happy ending is perfect and bland beyond words).

It's a heist! It's romance! It's suspense! It's drama! It's action! It's not.

F

Romeo & Juliet fans, stay tuned and wait smart for tomorrow's review of the modernized Roman smackdown based on William Shakespeare's Coriolanus.