Pseudonymous Man (Worthington) checks into a swanky New York hotel and turns down a bigger room for one “with a view” (thanks, Department of Foreshadowing!). He orders champagne and lobster for breakfast, as one does, and then scribbles what looks like a very meaningful note on the complimentary stationery. Then he climbs out of the window. Guess what he stands on? You’ve got it, sports fans – a ledge. FLASHBACK! “One month ago”, Nick Cassidy (hang on, that’s not the name he just used in that hotel!) was in prison for something or other that he feels rather bitter about. He’s just been handed down a twenty-five year sentence when his buddy Mike (Anthony Mackie) shows up to tell him that his father’s dying. An armed guard escorts Nick to the funeral, where he promptly gets into a fight with his brother Joey (Bell) and manages to snatch one of his minders’ guns in the ensuing confusion. Nick slips his cuffs, evades the fuzz and disappears.

Returning to the present day, a crowd has gathered beneath Nick’s ledge and negotiators are called in. But Nick will only speak to Lydia Mercer (Banks), a disillusioned detective who recently failed to talk a depressed fellow cop off the Brooklyn Bridge. As Lydia teases details out of Nick, things start to make sense; Nick, himself a former policeman, insists that he was framed for the theft of a $40m diamond from tycoon David Englander (Ed Harris). Englander owns both the hotel Nick’s balancing on the edge of and the building across the street – which contains the vault Nick was accused of robbing. But if the jewel in question is still in the vault, then Nick’s innocence can be proved… and while Nick distracts the city, that’s just what Joey and his girlfriend Angie (Génesis Rodríguez) intend to find out.

There’s nothing new on offer in Man on a Ledge, nothing at all. Most semi-dedicated cinemagoers could write a vault break-in (complete with your choice of inconvenient sensors) in ten minutes, and the prospect of Sam Worthington essentially wasting Elizabeth Banks’ time for an hour and a half whilst Jamie Bell cavorts in a series of air vents doesn’t exactly thrill. But for all its recovering of old ground, the premise is at least fun. The excitement of the heist scenes is heightened by the unavoidably slow pace of what I suppose must be referred to as the ‘ledge scenes’, and although some of the plot twists are just utterly stupid a few of them are really quite clever. (Mustn’t say too much, but keep an eye on the room service chap.)

The trouble with Man on a Ledge is that it never gets beyond that vaguely distasteful blend of ‘quite clever’ and ‘utterly stupid’. Jamie Bell’s performance is quite clever; Sam Worthington’s is utterly stupid. Casting Titus Welliver as a dodgy cop was quite clever; casting Elizabeth Banks as an earnest, incisive negotiator (who wakes up hungover but with artfully messy hair) was utterly stupid. Giving Bell and Rodriguez’ characters such a fiery and dynamic relationship to highlight Worthington and Banks’ tense tiptoeing was quite clever; making Rodriguez strip down to her underwear for literally no reason at all was utterly stupid and really quite sexist. What about the people who wanted to see Jamie Bell in a lacy bra?

Perhaps I was a bit unfair about Sam Worthington earlier. He wasn’t dreadful; he’s rarely dreadful. He was just so uninteresting that his performance is almost worth dismissing out of hand. “How far would you go to take down the man who stole everything from you” (or something), Nick growls at Lydia as the film approaches its nearly-climactic final scenes. If Worthington’s half-arsed frown can be taken as an example of just how far he went, it seems that the last word in revenge is ‘have champagne and lobster for breakfast, and then walk off your acid indigestion on a ledge’. Blah.

If you haven’t heard of The Gangster Squad, it’s a new crime movie set in 1940s/50s LA. Directed by Ruben Fleischer, it already has Sean Penn, Josh Brolin, Ryan Gosling, Anthony Mackie, Michael Pena and Bryan Cranston on its books (yes, believe it sister).

In this cop vs mafia set-up Ribisi is playing on the side of the law with his character Conway Keeler, member of the elite police team and specialist in electronics, wiring and general techy stuff that will have him talking in a fast voice as he explains something no-one understands.

Set for release in 2013 we are getting more excited about The Gangster Squad by the day – but with no ladies confirmed yet, we’re curious about who the lucky biatch will be.

The following morning sees the entry of a goofy troupe of fedora wearing celestial bureaucrats led by Richardson (John Slattery of Mad Men fame) and Harry Mitchell (Anthony Mackie) whose job it is to subtly interfere with (read: adjust) events in the world in order to make sure their mysterious ‘plan’ goes to, err, plan. Disaster immediately befalls their operation, however, as Harry, who has been working on David’s ‘case’ for many years, fails to subtly influence David’s fate when it is required of him. This causes David to unwittingly go ‘off-plan’. He boards an earlier bus resulting in a chance reunion with Elise, they re-hit it off and this time he gets her number before parting ways with her once again.

Later when he arrives at work, again earlier than expected, he interrupts another ‘adjustment’ in process. This ‘adjustment’ is less subtle than the first (it involves lasers) and thus reveals to David the clandestine operations of ‘The Adjustment Bureau’. After fleeing in terror David is accosted by Richardson and his goons and warned that he must not reveal their existence, nor pursue Elise, the latter being explicitly forbidden by the ‘plan’ on account of it having catastrophic consequences.

David is determined to be reunited with Elise, and the Adjustment Bureau is determined to keep them apart. It’s the classic tale of forbidden love, albeit realised through the less than conventional philosophical apparatus of fate and determinism! The stage is set for a gripping inter-reality cat and mouse chase! Or rather not. The Adjustment Bureau falls quite flat as a thriller and the reason is markedly simpler than the elaborate set-up: it lacks a true antagonist.

For a thriller to be thrilling there needs to be a believable threat of violence or danger, and the threats uttered by the Bureau aren’t really believable because from the start we are let in on the fact that they aren’t really the bad guys. They are a quite benign, rather likeable bunch who, despite the great power and responsibility they are endowed with, can be characterised by their bumbling incompetence (which caused the whole scenario in the first place) more than anything. This fundamental flaw makes the ensuing pursuit a somewhat stultified and neutered affair.

The introduction of veteran Bureau agent Thompson AKA ‘The Hammer’ (Terence Stamp) promises to inject a bit of urgency into proceedings. Unfortunately Stamp seems to have based his performance on some sort of camp Bond villain, rather than developing an understated menace that the role, or rather the whole film, was crying out for.

Matt Damon and Emily Blunt

It’s a bit of a shame because the lead performances can’t really be faulted. Damon is typically on form and perfectly suited to his role and Blunt’s character is actually quite likable, despite at times threatening to become a wacky, eccentric English stereotype. What’s more the dialogue between the two of them comes across as not only believable but natural – all the more impressive considering the relatively short amount of screen time they are given together.

Overall Nolfi has produced a smart script and got some great performances from his cast but all this is deflated by the lack urgency inherent in the plot. It’s telling that Philip K. Dick’s short story ends roughly where The Adjustment Bureau picks up. Dick’s conclusion simply isn’t the suitable premise for a feature-length thriller.

Bravo, team!

Expect to bite your nails to the cuticle over the subsequent two hours. Journalist and screenwriter Mark Boal spent time embedded with an army bomb squad in Iraq and his hellish experiences add the sheen of uncomfortable realism to Bigelow’s directorial brio. The odds are stacked against these men from the very first frame and the few who live to tell the tale will be emotionally scarred for the rest of their civilian lives. The antagonism continues on subsequent missions, like when James discards his military issue earpiece so he can think clearly without Sanborn barking in his ear. “Please put your headset back on,” instructs the sergeant. James responds by flipping the bird. “That’s a negative,” translate Eldridge.

Rough, tough, explodey stuff

When one reckless action has shocking and fatal consequences, Sanborn finally explodes – “We didn’t have to go looking for trouble to get your adrenaline fix!” – and James is compelled to face up to the repercussions of his decisions. The Hurt Locker is a gripping portrait of courage and carelessness under fire, anchored by strong performances from the leads as three very different faces of the modern US military. Renner captures the contradictions of his unit leader, who struts the line between bravado and suicidal stupidity. Mackie and Geraghty are compelling in their roles as the voices of experience and exuberance, and there are pivotal turns for Guy Pearce and Ralph Fiennes too as men caught in the relentless crossfire.

Bigelow’s direction is impeccable, shooting on location in Jordan in 130-degree heat to capture the exhaustion on the faces of her actors as they become embroiled in the meticulously orchestrated action sequences. Every bead of sweat, every grimace of pain looks and feels real, yet the men of Bravo Company wouldn’t want to be anywhere else. They get their kicks staring down the barrel of the enemy’s guns and dodging bullets every single day, and we’re invited along for the ride.

Special Features

Behind the scenes featurette
Cast and crew interviews