Hey folks, Harry here... I can now crawl like the animation above, just learned how in Rehab, they tell me it is a direct precursor to walking. And I did awesome with it. But I came back for lunch, and saw we had a reader review from Sundance of a film I haven't heard much about - but it sounds interesting. Not a home run, but an alright flick from the sound of it. Here ya go...
Harry, et all
Living in UT has its pros and cons. The pros outdoorsmen fall in line with the awesome powder for snowboarding and skiing in the winter. The plethora of lakes in the summer and wildlife for hunting in the fall. The number one con is how hard it is to get a good stiff drink. The beer is “low point” and I can’t grab a bottle of wine whilst picking up whatever it is I’m cooking for dinner that night. The one thing that alleviates that madness for 10 days a year is being in proximity to Sundance. Especially if you’re a cinemaphile like myself.
Tickets can be expensive for the non-press types like myself. So it’s normally a gamble when trying to conserve money and pick a few decent flicks to watch. Yesterday my girlfriend and I went to watch The Ledge. I haven’t seen any reviews so I just thought I’d send in a few thoughts about the movie.
The film was directed by Matthew Chapman who I’ve never seen anything else by and the premise sounds interesting. A Christian (Joe) challenges an atheist (Gavin) to commit suicide by jumping off of a ledge at noon in order to save someone else’s life (Joe’s wife who Gavin is having an affair with). Since the atheist doesn’t believe in an afterlife of eternal fire and brimstones he has nothing to lose (other than his current existence). The movie also has Terrance Howard in it and I don’t think I’ve seen him be bad in anything (he’s the one redeeming quality of Crash). The movie is told through flashback of what got the atheist on the ledge in the first place and that’s the underlying problem of the movie for me.
The main problem is, other than Terrance Howard’s character (who’s only in 10 minutes of the movie and has an interesting subplot himself) there are ZERO likeable characters in the movie.
When Gavin’s story is finally revealed he turns out to be a total douchebag. He falls in love and has an affair with another man’s wife but not before literally plotting how he was going to con her into sleeping with him in the beginning. Once his con plays out I’m hoping he jumps. That’s one less person I have to worry about trying to steal my girl.
Liv Tyler’s character turns out to be a junkie who found Jesus but because of boredom and/or a domineering husband she decides to find some excitement that the Holy Ghost can’t give her by fucking some other dude. If I were Joe I’d be like, “Really bitch? I bust my ass at work all day so you can go shlup this scrawny dude? Where’s the gun? Give me the gun?” They were going for the Natalie Portman – timid lost little girl vibe here and Natalie owns the role over Liv in Spades.
The final character in the love triangle, Joe, is something to watch although his homophobic narrow-mindedness makes you almost hate him and can’t really feel sorry for him when Liv does what he does. Although his backstory is interesting and his love for his wife is real so you almost feel bad for the dude. He’s just so far right you can’t relate and like I said, ALMOST understand why Liv does what she does but what guy wouldn’t snap like that if you were married to Liv Tyler (good boob shot) and you heard her fucking some dude on the table.
Anyway, the opening shot of the Christian cross amidst the pollution sets the tone for the movie. Joe is a real character and either Matthew Chapman was raised in an evangelical household or he knows someone who was because I’ve been there and I personally know “Joes”. Some of the things he says are exact, verbatim, lines I’ve heard in my own household growing up.
I give the movie a pass because of the premise and seeing Joe and Terrance onscreen however I can’t give it an enthusiastic thumbs up because there are no likeable characters, Terrance’s time is short (but awesome when he snaps), and by the time noon came around I was praying to a god I don’t believe in that this douchebag jumps so I can use the restroom already.
If you use this, call me Ron Mexico
