Kelly (Brittany Ashworth) and Sophie (Anais Parello) are two best friends who also happen to be expert at rock climbing, and have arrived at the Dolomites to scale one of its faces, not merely for fun, but in tribute to a fallen friend who died on these very mountains one year ago. What is threatening their respectful excursion is the arrival of a car full of overage frat boys led by Josh (Ben Lamb), who now they are in their early thirties like to get together to relive their lost youth and are planning on taking the safer, scenic route up the mountain Kelly and Sophie have marked out. Sophie thinks they might be fun, but Kelly knows a wrong 'un when she sees one and makes her excuses - too late for her pal.
Howard J. Ford made his name as a director, such as it is, by going to extreme lengths to try and capture locations never seen before. This time he travelled to Serbia as a stand-in for Italy, and thanks to a mix of well-photographed scenery and effects shots concocted a pleasing-looking thriller with horror overtones. The horror stemmed from the Josh character, who is your garden variety psychopath and he has a violent streak to render him even more unpalatable than he might have been already. Why do his three friends continue to hang out with him, you may ask? It's because he could easily blackmail them over a grim secret in their shared past where he instigated an attack on a school bully that left their victim severely disabled.
Part of the moral lesson in The Ledge was that it's best to get such secrets unburdened before they begin to gnaw away at your soul and lead to worse things in the future, so this could be regarded as a cautionary tale. In the main, though, it resolved itself into a single location suspense piece, as after Sophie meets a sticky end Josh persuades his reluctant allies to help cover up her demise, what they didn't count on was Kelly filming all this on her video camera, and now they know that she knows she has the evidence to make life very difficult for them. Hence, for a few minutes this was a chase thriller as Kelly scales the cliff to ensure the attackers cannot follow her, and when they cannot get her down that way, a simpler method raises its head: just do what they were going to do anyway, take the easy way up and intercept her.
Therefore she can only get so far - to the ledge of the title, although it could refer to more than one ledge, really - before having to wait out the baddies and hope they make mistakes in their increasing lack of patience with not being able to complete a basic but deceptively tricky task. Kelly hangs on like grim death to her little shelf, partially assisted by a camping tent designed for such an awkward setting that we just know will eventually be loosened and fall to the ground many metres below, it was that sort of movie. All the while her dead boyfriend gives her ghostly advice via her memories, positioned as flashbacks, the most useful being her learned ability to swing from one handhold to another. But the villainous Josh is determined to get the camera, and we presume, bump off Kelly after he has. It was pretty straightforward stuff but put across with verve and an intriguing lead performance from Ashworth who remained an almost silent heroine, only speaking when it counted. If you were seeking an unpretentious, high concept but thriftily budgeted effort, and could forgive some slightly shaky American accents (the cast were largely Brits), look no further, this fits the bill. Music by Imaran Ahmad.
[Signature Entertainment presents The Ledge on Digital Platforms 14th March and DVD 21st March 2022.]
