'Man on a Ledge' plunges into absurdity.

Jump! Please! Jump!

OK, to be honest, my thoughts didn't quite turn that sadistic when watching the movie "Man on a Ledge" — which, by the way, is about a man on a ledge — but they were moving in that direction.

It's a heist thriller, a genre that doesn't necessarily rely on realism for its appeal. That's fine. But "Man on a Ledge" is ridiculous even by those standards. And I'm not just talking about all the far-fetched goings-on in the movie; the acting is terrible, with Sam Worthington, Elizabeth Banks, Ed Harris, Edward Burns, Kyra Sedgwick and others playing cliched versions of cardboard characters.

Nick Cassidy (Worthington), an ex-cop wrongly imprisoned for stealing a diamond, escapes, winds up in a hotel room, has himself a nice breakfast (champagne!) and steps out on the ledge high, high above the busy Manhattan street below.

Is he one hop from a messy suicide? Not exactly. No, this is all part of a wacko plot to clear his name. I won't go further on that because I'd hate to spoil any surprise, other than to say that Banks and Burns are among the stereotypical wisecracking cops that try to save him, Harris plays the stereotypical nasty rich guy responsible for all of Nick's trouble, and Sedgwick — in what, odds are, is the worst performance of her career — appears as one of those stereotypical aggressive, ruthlessly ambitious TV reporters who lives off of scandal and tragedy.

Nick's whole scheme is nutty — you watch this and think, "Really, Nick? Standing inches from a horrible death is your BEST IDEA as a way of clearing your name?" But that's just a minor problem here. Almost every turn the story takes will have you slapping your forehead in disbelief. And it gets much, much worse as the story moves along.

That said, there are three things I liked in this movie:

1. There's a car chase in a cemetery. That's different.

2. Jamie Bell somehow manages to be convincing as Nick's younger brother.

3. Harris' character has this to say about Nick standing on a ledge: "Why don't those people just shoot themselves in the head?"

Tim Miller's reviews can be found at www.capecodonline.com/miller. His blog, Miller's Movie Blogorama, can be found at www.capecodonline.com/millerblog.