Man on a Ledge

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The thriller Man On A Ledge is the latest film starring Sam Worthington, Jaime Bell, Elizabeth Banks and Ed Harris. The film has Worthington, as former NYPD cop Nick Cassidy who was framed for stealing a famed diamond from a wealthy businessman David Englander (Harris), who escaped from jail and now is at stand off with the NYPD while he stands on the ledge of the Roosevelt Hotel. Trying to match wits with a police phychologist (Banks) while Cassidy's brother (Bell) and their partner (Genesis Rodriguez) plan on actually stealing the diamond that Englander has already collected on.

Henry Jackman, who's an upcoming composer with a string of successful and engaging scores to Gulliver's Travels, X-Men: First Class and Puss In Boots, was given the rather monumental task of providing the film's rather engaging, but somewhat overheated action. Taking a page in the sound of his mentors, Hans Zimmer and John Powell, Jackman's score for this film is definitely in the vein and sound of those composers but unfortunately it's not an engaging score as one would like it to be. The music takes a bit of a page from Harry Gregson-Williams' score to Taking of Pelham 123, which is a score I really enjoyed on its own merits as well as the score to Phone Booth, with atmospheric synthesziers. Jackman's score relies heavily on a tense strings, moody synthesizers and keyboards to provide both the action and suspense.

The album at times is emphasis on style and not substance as the opening track 'The Roosevelt Hotel' would dictate with its moody, synthesized atmosphere that essentually just dominates the album from start to finish in hard driving action in tracks such as 'The Getaway', 'The Diamond Thief' (both of these tracks have music that would be aiken to a theme), 'The Monarch Diamond', 'Good Cop, Bad Cop' (which really sounds a lot like Brian Tyler's Touage theme from the Fast and The Furious films) and 'Stand Off On The Roof' The album unfortunately ends with the 'Stand Off' track and just simply leaves you hanging which is another disappointing aspect to this score. i guess I could say it leaves you cold without wanting to be remembered.

The score unfortunately is a let down because its too synthesized at times to get emotional weight and there aren't enough orchestrial elements to give it plausability. I was expecting something aiken to his previous works which he really fully ultilized the orchestra and married the electronics when they really need it. Perhaps, I was expecting something like Trevor Rabin & Harry Gregson-Williams' Enemy Of The State or perhaps Graeme Revell's underappreciated, The Negotiator, which both scores really got a full sound and were highly successful in making the film tougher as well as emotional at times. The other major problem here is that there isn't a stand out theme that would give the score a central basis to evolve from.

Man On A Ledge isn't a terrible score, but a sure misfire for the rising star of Henry Jackman and I'm definitely sure he'll bounce back from this one with something grand.

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