A Risky Plan - DVD

Film: At first, the unknown man standing on the window ledge high in New York's Roosevelt Hotel appears to be an ordinary suicide. That he demands the police psychologist Lydia Anderson (Elizabeth Banks), of all people, who is not very respected by her colleagues, to negotiate whether he jumps or not, seems a bit strange to Detective Dougherty (Ed Burns). But what neither he, nor his colleagues suspect: the man on the ledge is ex-cop Nick Cassidy (Sam Worthington), who escaped from prison a few days ago. There he served time for allegedly stealing a $30 million diamond from construction lord David Englander (Ed Harris). And now Nick is determined to prove he's innocent at any cost. And his life-threatening action, which attracts many onlookers and the media, is only a small part of a risky plan Nick has concocted with his brother Joey (Jamie Bell).

A Risky Plan is an extremely suspenseful thriller that can be described as old-fashioned in the best sense of the word. The story is told at a decent pace, avoiding unnecessarily fast cuts and loud effects. Director Asger Leth takes his time to let the conspiracy thriller unfold slowly. There aren't any really big surprises in the process. But nevertheless he manages to build up a level of suspense from the beginning that he can keep up until the admittedly somewhat predictable finale.

This is largely due to the setting of the story, of course. The narrow windowsill of a New York hotel offers enough potential for moments of almost breathtaking suspense. The parallel story about Nick's brother and his girlfriend, who try to break into David Englander's house to prove Nick's innocence, is also laced with some light-hearted humor here and there, but also has enough thrills to keep the audience entertained.

All right, the consistently good actors are not challenged to top acting performances here, but they all deliver solid performances that are simply fun to watch. The interplay between Jamie Bell and Genesis Rodriguez in particular makes for some wonderful moments. And Ed Harris obviously enjoyed being allowed to act uninhibitedly sleazy and evil once again.

A risky plan truly does not revolutionize the thriller genre, but the film offers the inclined viewer 100 minutes of really good entertainment, which may not always follow the laws of logic, but nevertheless does not give the impression of wanting to take the viewer for a fool. Good actors, a great camera work, an exciting, grippingly staged story, all this easily prevails against the lack of originality. If you just want to see entertainment cinema of the thrilling variety again, you should go for this plan. Absolutely worth seeing!

Picture + Sound: While the sound is particularly pleasing with smaller surround effects, here and there but also with richer sounds, the very clean picture convinces with a good detail representation, an atmospheric color scheme and coherent contrasts. No reference material, but overall a good technical conversion!

Extras: The DVD comes up with one of the most pointless extras I have seen in a long time. Because instead of an audio commentary for the whole film, actress Elizabeth Banks gives only to the trailer (!) some not exactly exciting comments to the best. A bit better is the 15 minute making of, which is a bit too short and shows very clearly how the scenes in the airy heights were staged. In addition, there is the trailer without commentary, as well as other program tips of the provider.

Conclusion: A risky plan is a solidly staged thriller, which consoles with some dizzying scenes and good actors over a lack of originality. Good entertainment cinema, which presents itself on the DVD in good technical implementation. The fact that the extras, on the other hand, have turned out somewhat meager, strikes only conditionally negative. Recommendable

An article by Frankfurt-Tipp