Review of The Ledge (2011) by J Frank A — 11 Jun 2011

Excellent movie.

Some things though: It is a bit slow in parts, but that's needed to get the characters flowing. And that characterization is necessary because all the characters are flawed. They have all good characteristics and bad ones. In other words, they are human.

The film is being advertised as a statement for atheists, because of that the atheist is the protagonist, and even he is a bit of d-bag, and admits to being an ***hole in the film. So the film is being honest here, not trying to sugarcoat atheists as "really really open minded and sweet guys" but as they really are: human.

But it doesn't hold anything back on theists. I can see how it would anger a lot of theists (especially Evangelistic-type Christians) and I'm sure they'd proclaim "All [insert religion here] aren't like this: it puts us in a bad stereotype." But in fact, I feel the movie is begging for theists to do that, and I don't mean just for advertisement purposes. This movie WANTS to piss off theists. It deals head on with the philosophies and whys of someone who believes, holds up a mirror in their face, not to convince theists, but to convince others.

That's important because the key to this movie isn't the atheist or the theist. It's the detective and the girl. This movie puts a question in the minds of people who are on the sidelines not really involved with this debate:

Basically, the atheist has been forced to put his money where the theist's mouth is. Will he die so that the woman he loves lives? And how does his death, a death of a non-believer, can change someone else's life for the better without god in their life? Will he still change to a believer when faced with his own death?

And I can emphatically say that it definitely does NOT take it to the middle. Not even in an agnostic-y sort of way. It's atheist-pro all the way. It does not even shake from that.