Expect
Ex-cop Nick Cassidy (Worthington) has been convicted and jailed for stealing a million dollar diamond from unscrupulous Manhattan property tycoon David Englander (Ed Harris). After being released for the day to attend his father’s funeral, Cassidy escapes then ends up checking into upmarket Manhattan hotel, the famous Roosevelt Hotel, and climbing onto his hotel room window ledge, 21 stories up, in what looks like an attempted suicide bid brought on by grief. But nothing is as it seems, and everything is for a reason.
Think ‘Noughties Phone Booth meets Ocean’s Eleven’, with a touch of Statham rough-and-ready flung in from Worthington. Apart from the nicely stimulated tension and intrigue as to where the whole narrative is heading, one of the main reasons Leth’s film works is we like Worthington’s Cassidy for no apparent reason from the start, other than we have a ‘cop’s hunch’ that he’s a guy who has taken a fall and must be allowed to restore justice – by any means. Like a Statham character – albeit minus the slick action moves, Cassidy isn’t squeaky clean, but he fights his corner and has values that we can relate to. It’s certainly a time-honoured premise that allows us to feel the world isn’t such a bad place after all, full of latter-day, flawed ‘heroes’.
In times of austerity, Harris as Englander symbolises the latter-day folk devil – the greedy, corrupt businessman we all love to hate – and is faultless in the part. In fact, Leth’s fictional story is almost a self-serving diversion from his gritty documentary making, in that ‘the wronged’ and deserved triumphs – even if it ends with a groan-inducing slap-on-the-back for honest Irish roots and integrity.
[Rating:4/5]