“Man on a Ledge” is a tight little crime thriller—a heist-movie variant—with a few small problems and one big one. Given the top-notchness of the supporting actors here assembled—Ed Harris, Jamie Bell, Anthony Mackie, Titus Welliver—the casting of doughy Sam Worthington in the lead seems crucially ill-advised.

True, Worthington was also the nominal star of James Cameron’s “Avatar”; but really, who will ever think of that techno-epic as a Sam Worthington film? The mildly amiable Aussie is a stranger to star power, and putting him at the center of this picture is like building a fancy banquet around a main course of vanilla pudding.

In any case, the character Worthington has been called upon to play would challenge many a more resourceful actor. Nick Cassidy is a disgraced New York City cop, framed for a high-profile jewel theft and consigned to Sing Sing for a very long stretch, who escapes his warders, returns to Manhattan, checks into a room on the twenty-first floor of a midtown hotel, climbs out the window, and then spends most of the rest of the movie huddled on the titular ledge, in what we at first take to be suicidal despair. This constrained situation offers little opportunity for physical or emotional expression, and it shines a cruel light on Worthington’s charisma deficit.

Still, there’s some snappy action going on all around him. The script, by Pablo F. Fenjves—a star-bio specialist whose literary credits include ghostwriting the reviled O.J. Simpson murder book If I Did It—is a compendium of nicely tweaked genre clichés.

Read the full review at Reason.com

The season finale of Lost demonstrates that it is, indeed, the best show in the history of television.  More on that in a moment.  But first, the recruiting pitch. 

For those who don’t watch Lost, now is a perfect opportunity to start – register with Netflix and watch the series from the beginning.  Watch the first four episodes.  If you don’t like the show at that point, then dump out with the knowledge that you have given Lost a fair shake.  

But I would bet that you will be intrigued by the show.  Stick with it.  Give it the time it deserves.  And most of all, trust the writers.  They are tremendously creative and unpredictable, which is what makes the show so fun.  

Okay, back to the Season 5 finale.  Spoiler alert – I’m going to discuss plot points and in doing so, give my own theory as to what is happening on the show.  

Here’s the theory.  (more…)