6.2 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 2.5 | |
Overall | 2.5 |
After embarking on a passionate affair with his evangelical neighbor's wife, Gavin soon finds himself in a battle of wills that will have life or death consequences. As a non-believing atheist, Gavin is lured by her lover's husband to the ledge of a high rise and told he has one hour to make a choice between his life or the one he loves. Without faith in an afterlife, will he be able to make a decision? It's up to police officer Hollis to save both their lives but the clock is ticking...
Starring: Charlie Hunnam, Liv Tyler, Patrick Wilson, Terrence Howard, Jaqueline FlemingThriller | 100% |
Drama | 66% |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.78:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
English SDH, Spanish
25GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region A (C untested)
Movie | 2.5 | |
Video | 4.0 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 2.0 | |
Overall | 2.5 |
The “Four Horsemen” of the New Atheist movement—Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, and Daniel Dennett—have led a charge in the publishing industry with their faith-skewering polemics on science, reason, morality, and the perceived dangers of religious belief, but the movie industry has been understandably cautious to follow. It’s a touchy subject in America, for one, and two, preachy films of all stripes are often justifiably shunned at the box office. No one wants a sermon when they’re just trying to escape for a few hours. The cinematic championing of atheism, then, has largely been relegated to documentaries like Jesus Camp and Religulous, with few notable examples of narrative, dramatic films that deal with the reason vs. faith debate. But within the last two years there have been at least three films that come from a distinctly atheistic perspective—Ricky Gervais’ The Invention of Lying, the Pierce Brosnan-starring Salvation Boulevard, and The Ledge, a new film by writer/director/journalist Matthew Chapman, who, coincidentally enough, is the great-great-grandson of Charles Darwin. Of the three films, The Ledge is the most serious and heavy-handed, and its overly didactic take on the virtues of non-belief and the vices of fundamentalism ultimately spoils what could’ve been a decent thriller.
As the subject matter and style of the film at times seems more fitting for a made-for-TV movie, it's somehow appropriate that The Ledge has a very TV drama-ish visual quality. After all, this is a low-budget indie drama shot digitally with low-budget lighting on rather cheap-looking sets, so it looks more like something you'd see on cable television than a feature film. Not that this is necessarily a bad thing; it's just something to be aware of. That said, on its own merits, the film's 1080p/AVC-encoded digital-to-digital transfer is more than adequate and at times even impressive. There's really no stylization here whatsoever; Chapman and his DP are going for a strictly realistic look, with understated contrast—that is, not boosted beyond what's normal in real life—and colors that are dense but natural. Black levels are generally strong and skin tones are warm and consistent. Where the picture excels is in its level of clarity; close-ups display all the fine facial detail there is to see and even longer shots look suitably sharp, revealing—for instance— the thin wale of Gavin's corduroy jacket. Finally, noise never spikes beyond a reasonable level and there are no real encode-related distractions.
The Ledge is the epitome of a dialogue-driven drama—really, face to face talking constitutes about 90% of the film—so don't expect an intense aural experience from this DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 surround track. The rear channels are really only used for extremely light ambience—wind, bird noises, traffic sounds—and bleeding room for the film's quiet score. Most importantly, dialogue is always clean, unmuffled, and easy to understand, and that's honestly all there is to say here. The track effectively does what it needs to do, which admittedly isn't much. The disc includes optional English SDH and Spanish subtitles in bright yellow lettering.
Director Matthew Chapman has a valid point to make in The Ledge—namely, that secular humanists are just as capable as religious folk of being moral and self-sacrificially altruistic—but he goes about pounding it in with a hammer-like lack of subtlety. The film might be of fleeting interest to those who already bat for Team Atheism, but I doubt it's going to change many—if any—minds. If you're still interested, I'd suggest a rental, as there's really not much replay value here.
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