Jump (2012) Nichola Burley, Martin McCann, Charlene McKenna, Ciarán McMenamin Movie Review

Jump (2012)   3/53/53/53/53/5


Nichola Burley in Jump (2012)

An Angel of the North

It's New Year's Eve and Greta (Nichola Burley) just wants the misery of her life as gangster Frank Feeney's (Lalor Roddy) daughter to end which is why she is planning on committing suicide. Pearse Kelly (Martin McCann) is looking for answers into the disappearance of his brother which he suspects was down to Frank and his questioning is getting him in to some bother. Greta and Pearse meet on the bridge where she is planning to jump. Meanwhile small time crook Johnny (Richard Dormer) and Marie (Charlene McKenna) are both looking for the same thing, a fresh start.

Four characters all will their own stories but they end up all connecting to each other in a coincidental ways. Let's be honest, the concept of characters coincidentally connecting over a short period of time is not new and once you have worked out that "Jump" relies partly on the set up to entertain it loses something. Of course there is more to it than this as we have a storyline involving a gangster, a missing person, some stolen money and of course that means there should be some danger in "jump" as well. And technically there is danger but the movie fails to get you gripped like other similar movies have. Even the occasional touches of black humour don't quite work.

Part of the reason for this is that we don't get enough character depth to draw us into the individual characters and their stories but it is also down to the movie's styling. Now director Kieron J. Walsh and cinematographer David Rom certainly deliver some beautifully constructed scenes especially those involving Nichola Burley as Greta but the whole movie lacks that sharpness, that punch which stops it feeling like it is just drifting from one character and story to another.

What this all boils down to is that "Jump" is certainly not a bad movie and in truth it is well worth a watch. But it is a movie with some clear flaws which causes it to frequently struggle to fully command your attention.


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