The Pledge

Rating:
Summary: strangely compelling thriller
Review: Child endangerment has always struck me as rather questionable source material for adult thrillers ' particularly when that threat takes the form of child rape and murder. 'The Pledge' wallows in the muck of the subject matter a bit much for my taste, but the film does boast some interesting twists on this otherwise dubious theme.

For the first of its two hours, 'The Pledge' treads along some pretty familiar ground. Jack Nicholson plays Jerry Black, a veteran Nevada police detective who, on the very day of his retirement party, ends up at the scene of the brutal slaying of a 7-year old girl. Jerry finds himself pledging to her distraught mother that he will leave no stone unturned in bringing her child's killer to justice. Almost immediately, a suspect is arrested and forced to confess, but he kills himself while being taken to his cell, thus closing the case for all concerned ' except, of course, Jerry who, for reasons unfathomable to him or us ' other than that this is the way these plots always turn out ' feels that something is not quite kosher with the outcome. Thus, throughout the first half, the film goes through the motions common to this narrative setup: over-the-hill veteran follows a hunch that all the less seasoned pros dismiss as the rantings of a guy unable to give up the glory of the chase and settle into the quiet life of leisurely retirement. Jerry is, thus, on his own to prove them wrong and to bring the true culprit to justice.

But just as we are all settled in, ready to follow the movie along its preprogrammed course, damned if director Sean Penn and writer Jerry Kromolowsky don't pull the rug out from under us, sending the film off into new and unconventional territory. For slowly but surely we begin to see subtle hints that all may not be quite right with Jerry's psyche. Could it be true ' as a number of people along his way suggest ' that perhaps he really can't cope with the mundane world of domesticity and that he needs to 'create' a case to make himself feel as if he is still a part of the action? Or is he, perhaps, so traumatized by the brutality of the crime whose aftermath he's witnessed and so obsessed with fulfilling his 'pledge' to the girl's mother that he can't see facts as they really are and feels compelled to devise scenarios that will allow him to play the hero, thereby validating his own relevance? Or is it possible that he can be both mentally unbalanced and right about his hunches at the same time? Friedrich Durrenmatt's novel provides a solid core upon which the filmmakers can build their case. Even some of the predictable red herrings achieve more than their usual credibility when filtered through the mind of this potentially disturbed man. And the downbeat ending demonstrates a bravery rarely seen in Hollywood these days.

Nicholson does a superb job playing out the many aspects of Jerry's mind and personality and Robin Wright Penn provides strong support as the waitress he comes to love through the course of the film. I wish the filmmakers hadn't felt compelled to enlist an assortment of big name actors to provide cameo appearances throughout the movie. In this backwater area, it becomes disconcerting to see people like Vanessa Redgrave, Mickey Rourke, Sam Shephard, and Harry Dean Stanton pop up for their five-minute appearance, then disappear into the background never to be seen again. This game of spot-the-stars becomes not only distracting but undercuts the air of authenticity the film is trying so hard to achieve with its location shooting and somber pacing.

As a director, Penn shows definite assurance, allowing the story to unfold at its own deliberate pace, never feeling compelled to interject irrelevant action sequences for their own sweet sake. He also does a fine job exploiting the small town, rural atmosphere in which the film is set.

'The Pledge' starts out like a conventional thriller, but it ends up, much to the satisfaction of its audience, as something strangely unique and compelling.

Rating:
Summary: Durrenmatt is spinning in his grave.
Review: The Pledge (Sean Penn, 2000)

Watching this movie after reading the book upon which it is based has the distinct feeling one gets while watching a brand new Ferrari speeding towards a brick wall at a hundred twenty miles per hour. You know from the moent it comes into your view that something is terribly wrong, and you know what the outcome will be, yet you continue to watch in hopes that the driver will turn the wheel at the last minute and survive the spectacle. Unfortunately, The Pledge is like the Spyder that Elias Koteas used for the James Dean recreation in the film Crash-- you know that the guy behind the wheel here not only wanted the crash to occur, but that the crash was ultimately the main reason for the existence of the situation. From there, the best thing you can do is pick it apart and take a twisted fascination in seeing how everything went so horribly wrong.

In this case, you can sum up what went wrong in one easy sentence: the screenwriters who adapted the book had their priorities really, really screwed up. Instead of focusing on the main character's downfall and making the film into the same brilliant character study the book is, the film focuses on the subplot that is simply the catalyst for the main characters downfall. As a result, many of the scenes in the first half of the book upon which the narrative turns are gutted or altogether excised. The end result is that the main character, Black (Jack Nicholson), ends up looking like a levelheaded cop who's going about his business investigating a crime, even past his retirement, who eventually suffers a meteoric descent into madness for no discernible reason. (This isn't a spoiler: the opening scene of the movie is Nicholson standing, staring into the sun, muttering to himself and drinking.) This isn't Lovecraft; people don't go mad overnight in Durrenmatt's work. What makes his novels and plays so downright delicious is the descent itself, watching the main character(s) go mad just because they can't handle the world the way it is. It's not the one big event, it's the multitude of small events. That is absent from the screenplay, and the movie suffers greatly for it.

Looked at as its own piece, the movie becomes a bit more bearable. Black is a cop who catches a child murder case with six hours to go on the last day before he retires. He promises the child's mother that he will catch the murderer. The next day, the police have a suspect in custody, thanks to a witness who can place him at the scene. Everyone's convinced the suspect is the murderer except Black, who keeps digging into the case in order to find the real killer. It's a tried and true mystery formula, and it could have been made to work here. But, to turn my earlier argument on its head, once you get past the point where the scriptwriters gutted Durrenmatt's novel, they then decided to keep as much of what happens AFTER this as possible (changing enough to make a 1957 novel look contemporary and setting it in America, both of which are cosmetic changes). This is where the movie fully derails, as the lack of setup in the beginning makes everything that happens in the second half of the film look coincidental at best. It just doesn't work...

Rating:
Summary: A MUST NOT HAVE...
Review: This movie is edge of your seat suspense. From the beginning to the end you will be shocked and amazed at the great acting talent of Jack Nicholson. I must admit, he played a great detective in this movie. The movie is about a detective that is about to retire but does one last case before he goes on. This case consumes most of his time. The case is a murder mystery about a girl that was found and the killer he tries to find. Sounds good right? But their is one problem. The ending is not good!! I won't tell you the ending but all I'll tell you is "all that work for THAT!?" Its a great movie but the ending ruined the entire experience for me. I even asked other people about it and they said the same thing. You could not pay me to watch this movie again.

Rating:
Summary: JOACK NICOLSON IS GREAT!!
Review: this is really a grteat flick and waz the frist one i'z ever saw with jack nicoaoson. he si reallya greta actor, and i think he shoudl wien an oscar for this flcik. the dircting by sean peen is verey giod too. the story waz so inetetest. i couldnt' take my eyes fof the screen. everything is set up so wonderfully. this is reallya smart flick that people who know how to thinm should watch.

Rating:
Summary: Friedrich Duerrenmatt. Need I say more?
Review: About forty years ago I read Duerrenmatt's "The Inspector." I have since read everything else by him that I've found.

In a Duerrenmatt mystery, expect something different. In "The Inspector" it was a brief discourse on the ethics of a decision facing a police inspector. In his other mysteries it was something else. Here you get Jack Nicholson too.

Rating:
Summary: So mad
Review: My boyfriend and I couldn't believe it. At the end of the movie we just wanted to call Sean Pean and ask him how he could do this to us! What a let down. I can't believe we will never know who the killer is. After all that suspense. What were they thinking. Even though we enjoyed the movie while we were watching it, the end was such a let down that it's not worth it. Jack is great though...

Rating:
Summary: excellent movie
Review: I bought this on a whim,and I'm glad I did!
This is a deep intelligent story that messes with your mind days after seeing it.
Jack swears a Pledge to a Mother who's daughter was rapped and murdered.After finding a suspect(A crazy Indian)and getting a confession out of him,Jack is still not sasified he got his man.
The Indian Kills himself,and the case is dropped.Jack retires,but still obsesses with the case.
The ending is shocking,and it makes you think about the nature of man,and the justice of that nature.

Rating:
Summary: A waste of 2 hours of my life
Review: I can understand how this was much more than a simple crime-story movie. It just dragged for such a long time, and I felt too much was never explained. My husband and I thought the killer was two different people, and much to my disappointment, we will never know. Was it the priest? The faceless man from the Christmas store? The snow plow guy? A woman? The movie just ends. I can look back now and see a few things that make this more artistic, but I still feel strongly that I was mis-lead about what the film was about, and was robbed by the ending, or lack thereof. I loved Memento, and thought that was a fascinating and incredible movie, so I'm not only into flashy Hollywood films. But this movie I thought was a waste of time. And if someone knows who the killer is, please let me know.

Rating:
Summary: Please, Ignore My First Review of this Film (3 1/2 stars)
Review: A while back I wrote a pretty bad review about this movie; literally bashing the hell out of it. I thought it was the worst movie I had ever seen and I wished I had gotten my money back at the theater. Well, I have had the chance to watch it again, this time on DVD, and it seems like I made a pretty big mistake. This isn't the worst movie after all. I actually enjoyed it much more the second time around.

First, it wasn't all my fault. The movie was advertised completely wrong. You are sold on the idea that "The Pledge" is going to be a non-stop thrill ride like "Silence of the Lambs" or "The Bone Collector." This movie is somewhat of a thriller, but it is more of a film noir. That was another problem; I didn't know what a "film noir" was until I took a film class in college last semester. Now that I know what a film noir consists of, I was able to appreciate this movie for what it was. This movie relies more on story and character development than anything else. We slowly get to see Jack Nicholson becoming more obsessive over his desire to find "The Wizard"; a child killer who just might strike again.

Don't get me wrong, in no way is this film flawless. It still has some problems. Some scenes drag out a little longer than they should, and we should've seen Nicholson starting to become wrapped up more and more into his dark little world of promises and desire in a way that would better set the stage up for the conclusion, which some people may find unsatisfying. Now knowing what I was going to see, I can appreciate how it ends more. You may need to see it more than once to realize if you like it or not.

Sean Penn did a great job of making this film. You can easily tell that he wasn't in it for the money; otherwise he would've made it more gory, more action-packed, and so on. He wanted to make a film that he could be proud of, and one with great artistic value.

Again, I apologize for my first review, although it was a pretty funny one. The advertising of the film was the main problem. This is more of a watch-it-at-home type rather than a one to see in theaters. RENT this one first before buying it; it's a unique one that only a certain number of people are bound to like. Sorry, no eye-popping DVD special features, so don't have your heart set on that aspect of the DVD. All in all, "The Pledge" is a great film noir with a few thrills that enriches the movie even more.

Rating:
Summary: Jack's back!
Review: After a long layoff after his huge hit in, "As Good as it Gets," Nicholson re-appears in Sean Penn'smoving, and gritty suspense film.Nicholson makes a promise to find a child killer before he retires, and he truely sticks to it - to the point of him becoming vigilent beyond belief. He takes in a battered wife and her child. (Sexy Robin Wright isn't too sexy as a punching bag in this film.) Wright thinks there may be a future between her and Jack, while Jack doesn't seem too interested, maybe because he smells a problem involving Wright's daughter being watched by a strange man. Jack eventually uses Wright's daughter to bait the murderer, and Wright flips out! The ending is realistic, like the film, and reality can be cruel - according to Penn's interesting direction. But, just when this film picks up, it gets slow again. Too slow at times. And once again, Jack seems crazy from square one. Disapointing ending, at least for Jack's character, and you wish he would've succeeded in proving his point. Penn tells it like it is in this hard core drama, but his pace and rythm needs to be more upbeat