The Ledge

This is a bad movie.

Two girls are in a cabin preparing to scale a mountain face the next day. You learn later neither knows the first thing about mountain climbing - we're talking dropping your gear, not zipping your pack, not caring for your hands level of incompetence. Four thirty-five year old college frat boys arrive and the six of them decide to party together.

One thing leads to nothing and a guy tries to force himself on one of the girls. She runs off. The guys then decide the best thing to do to avoid a possible sexual assault charge on one of them is a double murder charge on all of them. Talk about loyal friends! They manage to kill one girl. One murderer promptly falls and dies.

What follows next is an hour of four people-who-can't-act climbing around a rock face about six feet off the ground. If that sounds dull let me assure, it's worse. It isn't helped by the fact Kelly seems to go out of her way to imperil herself in as stupid ways as possible. Night falls, instead of using the dark to her advantage, she sleeps in a tent. She screams to give away her position. She climbs vertically instead of horizontally. If it'll make her situation worse, she's up for it.

Three stars for a potentially gripping plot. No stars for not even trying to hire a cast of people who can pretend to act, for exactly zero suspense, and for the most amazingly inane dialog ever uttered on screen. Three stars.

It certainly suffers visually at times from the film's obviously low budget. They simply did not have the money that they needed to pull off some of the script's more action-packed sequences, especially toward the end.

The actors are all satisfactory, but none of the performances stick out as being memorable.

What kept this film very much afloat for me was the compelling characterization established at the beginning that kept these people interesting to watch for the story's entirety.

Each of the three men is distinct in their attitude toward the crime their friend Josh commits, and I found myself really interested to see what they would do next and how they would adapt to their friend's psychopathic tendencies.

Josh, as a villain, was cold and truly sociopathic and intimidating. He's written better than the actor portrays him, but it all gets the job done.

The lead character, Kelly, has a past that makes us want to see her succeed, and she is smart and resourceful enough that I kept rooting for her through the whole thing, pumping my fist in the air whenever she got the upper hand.

The Ledge isn't a paragon of depth, nor is it especially well-crafted, but it's a solid, well-paced contained thriller with a little more meat than average on its lean bones.

The actors are terrible, the script is ridiculous, the editing is messy.

Nevertheless, i give it 4 stars because i like free climbing and there are some nice mountain shots. And there is tension.

This is not a good movie, it is often unintentionally funny but it is also somewhat amusing. If you are seeking for some mindless fun, there is a chance you won't regret watching this.

But only if you're really bored and have nothing better to watch. You will also have to be able to suspend disbelief, especially if you have any knowledge of mountain climbing, because that area of expertise was clearly overlooked by the filmmakers for any level of realism. You might be ok if you've done some indoor wall climbing a few times.

Finally, you will also have to put up with more plot holes than the cliches, overacting, ridiculous dialogue and the entirely predictable narrative. On the bonus side, there were some true tense scenes, a decent score and excellent cinematography. The pacing was also fairly decent so that all the good and bad fit comfortably in the short 86 min runtime.

I'm not into thrillers, but I like climbing and I was keen to see some nice mountain scenes. I ended up liking it: acting, cinematography, editing, even the plot was good after a slow start. Definitely recommended.