I, like many people, have a healthy fear of heights. Or, perhaps more specifically, a fear of gravity, to paraphrase Terry Pratchett (who said something about the height or fall not being the killer, it’s the impact at the end of your losing battle against gravity). Anyway, The Ledge is a simple thriller that makes good use of a healthy fear of heights/gravity/impact to provide a tight and enjoyable viewing experience.
Kelly (Brittany Ashworth) and Sophie (Anaïs Parello) are two friends who have a climbing weekend planned. It isn’t just any climbing weekend. There is a special reason for them wanting to climb a certain rock face and prove to themselves that they can do it. Plans change, however, when Sophie meets some nearby men who also have weekend plans in the area. Drinks and fun take precedence, but everything changes when a bad situation takes a turn for the worse, leading to a sudden death. Desperate to cover things up, the remaining group members know that they cannot let one main witness go free. That witness, who caught it all on camera, is Kelly. With seemingly nowhere else to turn, Kelly starts climbing until she finds herself stuck on the titular ledge, enemies waiting for her both above and below.
There is backstory given here, an attempt to add motivation to our main character and build up the potential threat from the clearly very dangerous Joshua (Ben Lamb), but it’s very minimal. Things go from good to bad very quickly, which shifts the focus to the climbing and that haven/deathtrap that is the ledge. Writer Tom Boyle has managed to ease himself into his first solo work, striking a nice balance between the tension and the necessary character interactions that occur in between the thrills and violent acts.
Director Howard J. Ford is the more experienced party behind the camera, and has shown that he can get great results with limited resources (check out The Dead, 2010, but avoid the sequel). Ford manages to make things feel intense and energised, even while many scenes have characters figuring out how to get to one young woman trapped on a ledge, and he does well to include enough convincing climbing footage without highlighting the bits that have to be faked.
Ashworth is a likeable lead, and kudos to her, and everyone else involved, for whatever had to be done at any kind of height that would make me get all trembly (which is generally anything higher than a footstool). She shows grit and determination for most of the movie, and is helped by playing a character who has the wits and skillset to make her continuing survival believable. Lamb is an enjoyable nasty main villain, although he is hampered by the fact that he is written as Obvious Baddie from his very first moment onscreen. Everyone else does fine, but viewers will be waiting patiently for the expected final face-off between the characters played by Ashworth and Lamb, and I don’t think anyone will be left too disappointed by the time the end credits roll.
Although there are few things here that make this truly stand out, The Ledge does well enough on the strength of that core concept. It’s an easy way to create a scenario filled with tension and peril, and both the writer and director manage to make the most of it without making things feel as if plausibility has been stretched beyond its limits.
7/10
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