Mackie May Step Onto “Ledge”

Anthony Mackie will not be the “Man on a Ledge.”

ComingSoon reports (via paywalled Variety) that Anthony Mackie is in talks to join Sam Worthington in the thriller “Man on a Ledge.” Asger Leth directs the script written by Pablo Fenjves, Erich Hoeber, and Jon Hoeber.

It’s a story about, well, a man on a ledge, in this case a former NYPD officer, played by Worthington, who threatens to jump to his death, and a female psychologist. So what does that make Mackie? Not the female psychologist. I vote that he plays another cop. He’ll be the guy on the ground staring up at the building and helping to control the crowd while he stays in constant, tense contact with the female psychologist. I hate to say it, but without reading the screenplay, I feel like I can almost totally picture this movie shot by shot. It’s almost the same as any hostage situation movie. There’s the hostage/ledge guy shut away in his/her perch yelling into his/her phone. There’s the psychologist or negotiator who gets close to the angry/crazy guy/gal. There’s the officer or building owner or business owner outside speaking tensely and urgently to the negotiator/psychologist. We go through angry phases, phases where it seems like the angry/crazy person is calming down but then suddenly goes off again. It probably ends with someone embracing someone else and I don’t know, a building blowing up. You know what I mean.

All that said, if you’re going to push this type of story beyond run of the mill, you need good actors, and Mackie certainly is that. I think the jury is still out on Worthington, who’s been all action up to this point. That’s probably why he’s doing this part, sort of like Ryan Reynolds doing “Buried” to show he can carry a dramatic film.