Man on a Ledge
Summit Entertainment | Release Date: January 27, 2012 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
40
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 32 Critic Reviews
Positive:
4
Mixed:
18
Negative:
10
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
25
Rolling StonePeter TraversJan 27, 2012
The shopworn script by Pablo F. Fenjves, who ghost-wrote the unpublished O.J. Simpson book, If I Did It: The Confessions of the Killer, gets no help from director Asger Leth (Ghosts of Cite Soleil). Read full review
38
Washington PostAnn HornadayJan 27, 2012
Man on a Ledge has its diverting moments, but by the time it has reached its too-pat final twist, it turns out to be a title desperately in search of a movie. Read full review
50
St. Louis Post-DispatchJoe WilliamsJan 27, 2012
As in the mindless Man on a Ledge, the hero is never really in danger, we're the ones who are trapped. Read full review
50
New Orleans Times-PicayuneMike ScottJan 27, 2012
As ridiculous as it is, Man on a Ledge isn't a movie that requires suspension of disbelief. It requires the absolute absence of it. Read full review
38
New York PostSara StewartJan 27, 2012
What follows is a jumble of cop- and heist-movie clichés, dotted with appearances by actors you liked in something else. Read full review
50
NPRAndrew LapinJan 27, 2012
The film aims for Hitchcock and gets a bit turned around; we're The Audience That Knew Too Much. Read full review
50
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Liam LaceyJan 26, 2012
None of it rings true, except perhaps the presence of an ambitious local TV news reporter (Kyra Sedgwick) who begins recording every macabre moment with relish. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleJan 26, 2012
Man on a Ledge doesn't aim high, but what it aims to do, it does. It grabs the audience's attention, engages its anxieties, stokes its resentments and, at the finish, sends people out saying, "That was good." Read full review
38
USA TodayClaudia PuigJan 26, 2012
More often the film succumbs to clichés, grows convoluted and outlandish, and winds up dead on arrival. Read full review
50
Los Angeles TimesBetsy SharkeyJan 26, 2012
In Man on a Ledge, Leth does well in taking us to dizzying heights. If only he had found a way to ground that thrill in some real pathos as well. Read full review
60
Wall Street JournalJohn AndersonJan 26, 2012
The ending, for instance, is so ridiculously tidy it squeaks. But en route to its kitchen-sink climax, "Man" manages to both amuse and provoke, to cleave to convention and promote ideas. Read full review
10
The New York TimesStephen HoldenJan 26, 2012
Rarely has a film exhibited a bigger disconnect between urban realism and utter ludicrousness. Read full review
65
MovielineStephanie ZacharekJan 26, 2012
Either in spite of or because of its whimsically convincing quality, Man on a Ledge is reasonably fun to watch along the way. Read full review
38
Boston GlobeWesley MorrisJan 26, 2012
You could cast this movie with potato chips and still get cheers when one of the bad guys is cuffed. It doesn't matter that none of it is to be believed. Read full review
40
New York Daily NewsElizabeth WeitzmanJan 26, 2012
Screenwriter Pablo Fenjves start with a promising premise, and the opening scenes are taut and suspenseful. A late-day chase scene picks up the sagging middle, but Leth totally fumbles what should be the movie's biggest moment. Read full review
60
TimeMary PolsJan 26, 2012
It's fun in a perverse way; the viewer gets to experience a vivid sense of what it feels like to occupy a pigeon-poop smeared piece of stone high in the sky. Read full review
70
Chicago ReaderBen SachsJan 26, 2012
Leth moves lightly and briskly, streamlining the weird material into something elemental and true; he's also assembled a knockout supporting cast. Read full review
50
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsJan 26, 2012
The supporting players in Man on a Ledge bring more to the party than the leads, and my suspension of disbelief seems to have gotten hung up in traffic while attempting to cross the suspension-of-disbelief bridge from the Brooklyn side. Read full review
25
Miami HeraldRene RodriguezJan 26, 2012
Man on a Ledge just made me think of an old Van Halen song: Jump. Read full review
40
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzJan 26, 2012
Too bad. You sense that someone could have made a good movie with this material. Unfortunately, Leth didn't. Read full review
33
The A.V. ClubScott TobiasJan 25, 2012
As the plot unfolds, brick by brick, the structure starts to wobble until it finally collapses into unintentional comedy. Read full review
40
Austin ChronicleMarc SavlovJan 25, 2012
In the end it's all much ado about not so much, a semifunctional thriller that tingles but never terrifies. Ledge schmedge. Read full review
50
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger EbertJan 25, 2012
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 full review
50
Entertainment WeeklyKeith StaskiewiczJan 25, 2012
Despite the occasional dumb fun - especially with the heist portions - the leap of logic required to make it all work is enough to leave your brain pancaked on the sidewalk. Read full review
63
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliJan 25, 2012
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 full review
60
Boxoffice MagazineSara Maria VizcarrondoJan 25, 2012
Clichés and thin thrillers are what we can expect from January releases and while Man on a Ledge has predictability to spare, it also has something that makes your time spent worthwhile: legitimate suspense. Read full review
42
Tampa Bay TimesSteve PersallJan 25, 2012
Man on a Ledge makes bigger leaps of logic than Nick will if he fails a gravity test. If the transparent sting springing him from Sing Sing doesn't roll your eyes, then wait for the climax when Nick becomes a kind of plainclothes Spider-Man. Read full review
38
Slant MagazineJaime N. ChristleyJan 25, 2012
The script is a hot mess of the highest order, taking some of the stalest chestnuts in the long, venerated legacy of the framed-cop-trying-to-clear-his-name genre and somehow f---ing it up, in scene after scene after scene. Read full review
40
Time OutA. A. DowdJan 24, 2012
Trusting an action drone like Worthington to anchor the human drama is a fatal mistake. With him perched on that narrow slab of concrete, it's only a matter of time before the film plummets. Read full review
30
Village VoiceBrian MillerJan 24, 2012
Worthington wouldn't know how to behave if the film were a comedy; and poor Banks, after a promising, "Young Adult"–style introduction, isn't allowed to goose the script or push beyond the glass ceiling of her character. Read full review
50
The Hollywood ReporterMichael RechtshaffenJan 23, 2012
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 full review
50
VarietyJustin ChangJan 23, 2012
This cloddishly contrived suspenser is too busy to bore, but too farfetched to thrill, combining routine heist-thriller machinations with dialogue that often thuds like a body hitting asphalt. Read full review
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