BEFORE: Boy, what a day I had - I've mentioned how I've been studying for this Fire Guard exam, which really is two tests administered by the FDNY, one is for a Certificate of Fitness for Indoor Place of Assembly Safety Personnel, and the second is for Supervision of Fire Safety Alarms. I planned to take both exams two days ago, but then decided I'd rather see "The Batman", so I justified that by saying that re-scheduling for today would also give me two more days to study for the exams, increasing the chances of getting a passing grade. This is the kind of argument I use when I want to procrastinate and go to the movies instead of doing the thing I'm supposed to do.
Anyway, today I had another day off so I figured I should really go take these exams, my managers at the theater have been bugging me for a few weeks, and my head manager wrote me a letter of recommendation back on March 1 - OK, so enough dawdling, time to go and do it, right? Now, the FDNY strongly recommends that you make an appointment online and also pay in advance, in order to save about two hours of time waiting in line. Well, I tried doing that, but either their web-site was super-glitchy (very possible, from what I saw last year on NYC's unemployment and vaccination-based web-sites) or I was doing something dumb, and getting stuck filling out their forms. I kept typing in my work location, but after doing that, the site kept asking me for my work location, I couldn't figure out why. So, I figured I'd get up early today, take the subway to the test location site and just apply in person - so it might take two hours of waiting in line, I've got that kind of time, at least at the end of those two hours, I'd have passed the tests and gotten my certificates. And, in the event something went wrong, or I failed the exams, I'd consider today a "dry run", a chance to learn more about the process, and then I'd come back next week and nail it, based on what I'd learn from failing.
That's not what really happened today - I didn't really get up that early, I was out the door by 9:45. Well, come on, that's early for ME but it's not early from most other people's perspective. Then I stopped for an egg sandwich and a coffee, because I figured I needed to fuel up before standing in line and taking a test, so I arrived just before 11 am, and there was a big crowd outside the testing center. Ah, this was bound to be a problem - NYC's pandemic recovery means that businesses are back, but city services might still be lagging behind a bit, and that means people need to take fire exams, but the staff is overwhelmed. Well, I figured I'd wait it out, again, anything learned today could be useful next week. Point 1 - maybe try to get up earlier, the testing center opens at like 7:45 am and the first people there were probably already finished with their exams. I scanned the QR code and got in the virtual queue, but then spent over an hour outside before they got close to the number on my ticket. Well, at least I was inside shortly after noon.
I'd already filled out my application the night before, so that saved some time - but my ticket number was 140, and since I hadn't paid online, I had to wait in a big room for them to call my number, and they were only on number 70. I thought maybe things might speed up, but if anything they got slower since it was lunchtime and all of the cashiers then took turns going on break. A smarter man might have given up and gone home, but I chose to stay, since I was already there and had no place else I needed to be. Anyway, any time spent sitting in the waiting room was time I could use going over the study materials again - my late-night sessions weren't all that effective because that's when my brain is tired, and then going to sleep right after studying doesn't really help keep information in your short-term memory. So three hours in the waiting room was a chance to put information about smoke detectors and fire extinguishers back in my short-term, just to have it handy for the test. After that, I didn't want to play trivia games on my phone or do anything else that would take up brain space, so I just sat there.
Finally, I got called to the cashier, about 3 pm - it took another 15-20 minutes for them to process my application, then I was ready for the tests. Umm, after another bathroom break. But THEN the tests, and I've always been good at standardized tests. Multiple choice? No problem, even if I didn't remember that exact information from the study guides, I'm really great at guessing the answer when given four possibilities. I whizzed through the first test, even had plenty of time to double-check the answers I wasn't sure of, and when I clicked "Submit", the computer screen told me I had a score of 88. Not bad at all - I last took this test over 30 years ago, I know I passed but I'll be damned if I remember my score from 1989.
On to Test #2. I don't know if I didn't study for the second test as well, or for as long, but I was just stumped on a fair number of the questions. Either my brain didn't register some of the information I read, or they were playing a little fast and loose with the questions. (Overall, the study guides were so poorly written, so full of grammatical errors, that I don't see how anybody learns important information from them, but whatever.). I finished the second test with a full half-hour of time left, but I figured that if I spent too much time debating my answers, I might improve my score by going over it again, but I might also manage to talk myself OUT of a few correct answers. So I hit "SUBMIT" to get my second score, figuring that the worst case was that I'd have to come back next week and try again, but I'd at least know more about the questions they were likely to ask. BUT my score was a 74, which is passing - I had to score above 70, so I made it on both exams, and got to leave the testing room before some of the people who'd started taking it before me. Sure, that's a "C" grade, but a win is a win, and I decided to take it.
After some confusion over a lack of my workplace's zip code, they had to issue me a second set of IDs, but then they screwed up the street address. OK, so I may have to go back next week anyway and fix this, but I still passed the exams, I can breathe easy and sort of get my life back. Plus now I get keys to the building, I can open or close the theater by myself, and they're going to reimburse me for the cost of taking the test, so it's a win all around.
This time, it's Elizabeth Banks' turn to carry over, from "Walk of Shame".
THE PLOT: As a police psychologist works to talk down an ex-con who is threatening to jump from a Manhattan hotel ledge, the biggest diamond heist ever committed is in motion.
AFTER: Geez, the last film had a scene on a fire escape, this one prominently features fire extinguishers being used in a heist, what are my movies this week trying to tell me? I just passed the damn exams, leave me alone already!
Well, this film's been on my books for quite some time, but as you can perhaps guess, this is what it takes for a film to get on my radar these days, it's got to have an interesting hook, something that makes me wonder, "Hmm, how is that going to work as a movie? OK, I'll give it a go..." Here it's a man standing on a building ledge, how the HELL are they going to make that situation into something interesting enough to fill an hour and three-quarters?
Well, they gave it a valiant effort, I'll give them that. Because part of the mystery here is learning not only WHY the man is on the ledge, but WHO, exactly, is the man on the ledge? The opening sequence shows him getting a hotel room at the Roosevelt (45th & Madison, nice area, a few blocks north of Grand Central...), eating a nice breakfast with champagne, and then...opening the window and stepping out on to the ledge. WHY? Ah, then the film snaps back in time a month to show us that the man's in prison, so perhaps there is a reason for everything, and over time this everything will be revealed. OK, you got me, I'm in for the long haul - provided I can keep my eyes open, and I'll admit that was tough, because I had to get up the next morning for that damn fire exam, so that meant no Mountain Dew, or I'd never get to sleep.
SPOILER ALERT - if you haven't seen "Man on a Ledge" and you're planning to in the future, please turn back now, to preserve the secrets that the film has in store for you. The "Man" in the title is Nick Cassidy, though he rents the room under the name of Walker, and he's both an ex-con and an ex-cop. There was some kind of incident with a very large diamond, and it seems that Nick was charged with stealing this diamond, and having it broken down into many smaller diamonds, I guess as one is likely to do. BUT there's more to the story, because Nick claims that he was framed for this theft, the theft was a fraud to collect the insurance money, and he still maintains his innocence. However, the only way that he can prove that he didn't steal that diamond is to prove that the former owner still has it, and there's only one way to do that, by stealing it. Honestly, I can't tell if that plan is very meta, super-ironic, or perhaps (and this is a long shot) perfectly logical. Let's see, robbed guy still has it, so steal it so he doesn't have it, but that would prove that he DID still have it, before it got stolen the second time. I guess that checks out?
So, the man on the ledge is both a distraction, so his brother and brother's girlfriend can steal the diamond, and Nick also serves as a lookout, because the theft is taking place in another building nearby. And a man standing on the ledge on the 21st floor is I guess one way to make sure that all eyes, especially the NYPD's, are on that hotel, and not any building nearby where something else it taking place. In true Hollywood heist-movie fashion, the thieves have calculated the plan down to the most minor detail, even the ways in which the mark will act once he knows that his valuables are in jeopardy. Also, in true Hollywood heist-movie fashion, there's some element of the security system the thieves didn't know about, and so they have to improvise a little. Don't worry, everybody's still looking at the man standing on the ledge. Not me, though, because I'm afraid of high places, even when they're depicted in a film. If you're a fellow acrophobiac, perhaps this is not the movie for you.
There are probably a ton of plot-holes that would come to me over time, but after the day I had, my brain is pretty much shot. Let's start with Elizabeth Banks as a police negotiator, I can maybe buy her as a news anchor, but come on. Secondly, what's the percentage here of corrupt NYC cops? What is this, Gotham City or something? Thirdly, this film makes it look WAY too easy to escape from prison, or for that matter, to fake a diamond theft or fake one's own death. Perhaps there's another story tangent here about how Nick was framed, but it's probably too boring to explore, so never mind. Maybe you do really have to turn off your brain to enjoy this movie, which means that I perhaps watched it just one day too early.
Also starring Sam Worthington (last seen in "The Debt"), Jamie Bell (last seen in "Filth"), Ed Harris (last seen in "The Last Blockbuster"), Anthony Mackie (last seen in "The Woman in the Window"), Genesis Rodriguez (last seen in "The Last Stand"), Kyra Sedgwick (last seen in "Just a Kiss"), Edward Burns (last seen in "27 Dresses"), Titus Welliver (last seen in "Escape Plan 2: Hades"), Felix Solis (last seen in "Arbitrage"), William Sadler (last seen in "Bill & Ted Face the Music"), J. Smith-Cameron (last seen in "The Rage: Carrie 2"), Patrick Collins, Afton Williamson (last seen in "Otherhood"), Robert Clohessy (last seen in "The Place Beyond the Pines"), Joe Lisi, Frank Pando (last seen in "You Were Never Really Here"), Michael Laurence (last seen in "One for the Money"), John Dossett, Jason Furlani, Terry Serpico (last seen in "The 5th Wave"), Geoffrey Cantor (last seen in "An American Pickle").
RATING: 5 out of 10 red wires
No comments:
Post a Comment