Man On A Ledge (US) - Quite Entertaining Heist Movie

Man On A Ledge
Synopsis:

The movie start up with a man named as Nick Cassidy (Sam Worthington) who checks into a hotel room in Roosevelt Hotel with a window view. After checking in, Nick orders a champagne and a breakfast. After finishing it, he carefully cleans all the fingerprints in the room and proceed to climb onto the ledge of his hotel room. When the people in the street saw him, they presume that he is going to commit suicide and subsequently call the authorities. An officer in the scene, Jack Daugherty (Edward Burns) decided calm Nick from jumping but Nick demanded that Jack finds Lydia Mercer (Elizabeth Banks) to be his negotiator else he jump. We found out that Lydia is a police officer in-charge with suicidal negotiation but had an incident gone wrong and feeling self-guilt and depressed. During also this time, we are shown the events before his coming over to the ledge. Nick was a police officer who is found guilty of abscond a $40mil diamond from a property businessman, David Englander (a very thin Ed Harris) but he always maintain his innocence that it was a set-up and Englander is the person behind the thief so that he can claim insurances due to his failing business. Nick escapes from prison when he was granted special visit to the cemetery to visit his late father. The movie panned back to the current time frame where Nick's younger brother, Joey (Jamie Bell) and his girlfriend, Angie (Genesis Rodriquez) sneaks to the next building that Nick is supposing to jump to break into a vault keeping the $40Mil diamond of Englander. Then, we are shown a tense scenario where Nick is trying to divert the attention of the cops while also using the crowd to camouflage the heist by Joey and Angie. When Joey and Angie finally succeed in getting the diamond, they are caught by Englander. During this time, police got to know that Nick is a convicted prisoner and hell-bent in capturing him. When Englander knew of his identity, he dispatch his corrupted officers, his old partner Mike Ackerman (Anthony Mackie) and Dante Marcus (Titus Welliver) to kill Nick. Feeling remorse, Ackerman tries to protect Nick but was shot by Marcus who is subsequently killed by Lydia. Upon seeing Englander trying to escape with his diamond, he managed to jump on him and shows the crowd that he is innocent by showing the diamond. Finally, Nick is drop of all charges and reunites with his brother and girlfriend together with his supposedly deceased father and Lydia.  
Review:
I didn't know the storyline when i decided to catch his movie before it hits the theater nor the movie trailer. In the end, it turn out to be a very good, entertaining and non-stop excitement movie. I didn't expect this movie to be that good especially when the movie title is so lame but it really hit me hard. The movie is never dull and we are forced to think if Nick is going to jump or not going to jump. His character has not much things to do apart from being on the ledge for most of the movie but somehow, the director is able to pump up the intensity with the diamond heist. The storyline isn't all that great and there are some loopholes everywhere in the movie but it didn't stop the movie from being a fun roller-coast movie. Definitely worth the ticket money to watch 2 good movies back-to-back  (the other being Chronicles)   

Verdict:

I give this a 4 star out of 5

Chronicle (US) - A Realistic Super Power Movie

Chronicle
Synopsis:
The movie is captured in a video-cam format and most of it is captured by one, Andrew (Dane DeHaan) who is an introvert, living with his sick mother and a drunken abusive father. Through the lens, we are able to see that Andrew is often being bullied in schools and hangs out with his cousin, Matt (Alex Russell). One night while filming a party event and getting punched at, a popular guy in school, Steve (Michael B. Jordan) requested Andrew to film a hole in a ground that he and Matt discovered. He continue to film them crawling inside the hole and until they found a green-glowing crystal like object which emits a high pitch sound until the camera blanks out. Then the camera panned to how the 3 of them have this telekinesis power where they are able to move an object just by thinking about it. They decided to harness the power and play pranks in the school, supermarket and etc until Andrew took things a little far by unintentionally pushes a bully truck off the river, thus endangering others. Matt decided to create rules whereby they are not to harm any humans with their powers which all agreed. For the next few months, they were able to fly up in the sky using their new found power. Andrew also became popular with the school mates after a magic show performance using his power to win friends over and some female fans. When one of the female fan decided to have some intimacy with Andrew, he vomits at the girl due to excessive drinking and was laugh at. Andrew then began to isolate himself and began feeling upset with everyone, and when Steve tries to calm him down, he was stuck by lighting generated by Andrew. Andrew also finds himself broke when needed to buy medicine for his sick mom, decided to rob a bunch of drug dealers in his neighborhood and also a petrol station, where he was accidentally burned and admitted to the hospital. Under the policy custody, Andrew father decided to visit him and place the blame on Andrew over his mom's death but Andrew woke up and an explosion erupted in the room with Andrew throwing his dad over the hospital but was saved by Matt. Andrew and Matt decided to battle each other and finally Andrew was killed.
Review:
Although there are some uninteresting dialogue and unnecessary scenes especially between Matt and Casey, but overall the pace is quite nice and entertaining when Matt, Andrew and Steve began to show their power. The cam-type shooting was quite nicely done but there are still some jerkiness especially in the beginning and the ending where the slug-fest was film using many different cameras. The acting of all the 3 unknown actors are quite good, up to the point that i thought they are some veteran actors. Andrew who looks a bit like Leonardo DiCaprio is good in showing his shyness, introvert and abused son while Matt who looks like a younger version of Ashton Kutcher is a handsome lad with some good humor while Steve is the most likeable person. With much screen time dedicated to Andrew, Steve and Matt had to utilize whatever time they have and they did quite good. The ending where the slug fest between Andrew and Steve is something to behold. The camera shot was extremely realistic and good, that i was hoping for more longer battles but judging that this is not a superhero movie, it did serve its purpose excellently. 

Verdict:

I give this movie a 4 out of 5 star for the video-cam format genre with fresh ideas and great CGI shot.