Man on a Ledge 2012

Mary F. Pols, TIME Magazine: The movie stays aloft on the sparks provided by Banks, Ed Burns (playing a skeptical cop), Anthony Mackie (as a cop to be skeptical about) and particularly, Bell and Rodriguez. Read more

Tom Keogh, Seattle Times: Noisy street crowds and an "Attica!" shoutout allude to Sidney Lumet's classic "Dog Day Afternoon," suggesting what "Ledge" director Asger Leth is hopelessly, vainly reaching for. Read more

Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle: "Man on a Ledge" doesn't aim high, but what it aims to do, it does. Read more

Kathleen Murphy, MSN Movies: "...it didn't entirely suck but sort of just petered out..." Read more

Stephen Holden, New York Times: A movie that doesn't realize that it should have been a comedy. Read more

A.A. Dowd, Time Out: Trusting an action drone like Worthington to anchor the human drama is a fatal mistake. Read more

John Anderson, Wall Street Journal: En route to its kitchen-sink climax, "Man" manages to both amuse and provoke, to cleave to convention and promote ideas. Read more

Scott Tobias, AV Club: The film really lives or dies on the integrity of its plot mechanics, with nary a theme to subvert or exploit. And to that end, it winds up as a calamitous heap of mangled gears, snapped levers, and rusty springs. Read more

Bill Goodykoontz, Arizona Republic: You sense that someone could have made a good movie with this material. Unfortunately, Leth didn't. Read more

Christy Lemire, Associated Press: "Man on a Ledge" is so cliched and reheated, it almost feels like a parody of a generic action picture -- only no one seems to be in on the joke. Read more

Wesley Morris, Boston Globe: The movie doesn't give an audience anything that makes sense. How does Harris smoke a cigar that appears to weigh more than he does? And whence is Worthington's accent? Read more

Ben Sachs, Chicago Reader: This noirish thriller is as self-knowingly ludicrous and thoroughly enjoyable as Fritz Lang's Beyond a Reasonable Doubt or While the City Sleeps. Read more

Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune: You can say this for screenwriter Pablo F. Fenjves' story: It stays busy. Read more

Tom Long, Detroit News: There's no escaping the sheer terror of a guy standing on a ledge that high up. "Man on a Ledge" delivers the sweats it intends to deliver. Read more

Keith Staskiewicz, Entertainment Weekly: For a film with such a straightforward title, Man on a Ledge turns out to be remarkably convoluted. Read more

Eric D. Snider, Film.com: Dumb, easy-to-swallow fun, more or less - the sort of movie that makes people say, "Well, that wasn't as bad as I thought it would be." Read more

Michael Rechtshaffen, Hollywood Reporter: To his credit, director Asger Leth (Ghosts of Cite Soleil) gets right to the business at hand where the set-up is concerned, but it's in the execution that this would-be thriller falls flat. Read more

Ann Hornaday, Washington Post: It sure is about a man on a ledge. Read more

Betsy Sharkey, Los Angeles Times: Oh, that the actual human dynamics of the unfolding story could have been as dramatic, as on the edge as that ledge. Read more

Rene Rodriguez, Miami Herald: Man on a Ledge made me think of an old Van Halen song: Jump. Read more

Rafer Guzman, Newsday: A clumsily made thriller with very few thrills. Read more

Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger: This is one of the few movies that, with its skyscraper action scenes, probably needed to be made in 3-D. As it is, though, it's barely in 2-D - and really, I'm not sure it needed to be made at all. Read more

Andrew Lapin, NPR: The film's descent into generic silliness feels more painful than it should for a late-January thriller. Read more

Elizabeth Weitzman, New York Daily News: Like Cassidy, Leth never quite knows whether to jump or stand firm. Too often, he just winds up wobbling in the wind. Read more

Sara Stewart, New York Post: [A] jumble of cop- and heist-movie cliches, dotted with appearances by actors you liked in something else... Read more

James Berardinelli, ReelViews: On balance, Man on a Ledge is fun, but I left the theater feeling disappointed and cheated, as if the filmmakers set me up for something great they ultimately couldn't deliver. Read more

Richard Roeper, Richard Roeper.com: 'Man on a Ledge' is our first legit contender for Best Worst movie of the year. Read more

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: The movie cuts back and forth between two preposterous plot lines and uses the man on the ledge as a device to pump up the tension. Read more

Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune: The solution to "now what do we do for 103 minutes?" is to pile as many silly distractions into the running time as possible. Read more

Joe Williams, St. Louis Post-Dispatch: When an action movie is as clumsy as "Man on a Ledge," it's begging to fall. Read more

Liam Lacey, Globe and Mail: Credibility takes a nose-dive long before its protagonist is separated from his perch. Read more

Alonso Duralde, TheWrap: It's not a despicable film, to be sure, but it's a time-filler at best. Read more

Anna Smith, Time Out: This embraces its own lunacy readily enough, never aiming for anything more than the disposable thrills it delivers thick and fast. Read more

Peter Howell, Toronto Star: Nobody should be this hard up for entertainment. Read more

Claudia Puig, USA Today: The film succumbs to cliches, grows convoluted and outlandish, and winds up dead on arrival. Read more

Justin Chang, Variety: This cloddishly contrived suspenser is too busy to bore, but too farfetched to thrill. Read more

Brian Miller, Village Voice: With his pickled shark's smile, Harris is a welcome presence left with regrettably little to do. Read more