The Pledge (2001)

I caught the second half of this flick and was engaged by its pace; it's well shot and enhanced by the soundtrack. Jack N is convincing and the rest do OK too, with some very (very, very) little cameos by such as Harry Dean Stanton and Micky Rourke. I saw the whole film a few days later and found I wasn't quite as enthusiastic about it. Some of the characters seemed less credible and a bit cliché. The story plays out like a suspense thriller/whodunnit, which is not really my thing, but there's just about enough interest to keep one watching (and there's always Jack) and the film's merits just about counteract its shortcomings (which are mainly plot-related and the fact there are too many lazy coincidences to serve its progression). The ending is a tad disappointing, plot-wise, as it seems a bit of a cop out to me, although the very final scene offers some form of redemption by refocusing our attention on the character study that I guess is its main aim/strength.

Now retired police detective Jerry Black lives completely within the law.In splendid character he very successfully uncovers the illegal acts of a deeply dark child killer. The glory of that career finale credit goes to him.However, the story of the catch is completely lost to him and he is discredited and stripped of having a good side!What makes a town a town, or a man a man? It is a chief person or object that makes each of them. They are no longer when they lose that which is exceptional.

In fact the novella by the Swiss author Friedrich Duerrenmatt, to which this screenplay is pretty much true, I guess (I've only read the Wikipedia synopsis) is subtitled "Requiem for the Detective Novel," and moreover it has a framing device which clues in the reader right away that his/her expectations should be held on a tight leash. This movie lacks similar warning labels, a flaw for which I'm knocking off a star as it inevitably makes people mad and confused (see some other user reviews).Furthermore not everyone wants to spend two hours on an existential parable. I wasn't really prepared for it myself, and when it was over I had a period where I thought Sean Penn had played an irritating prank on me, sort of like someone who tells you a long involved joke with a really stupid punch line. But when I had thought about it a few minutes I developed a better appreciation of the philosophical issues that the movie was raising.To give you a sense of those issues: when Victor Frankl was in a Nazi death camp, he had written a philosophical manuscript, and another prisoner asked him what the point of this was, since they were probably all going to die there and the manuscript would be forgotten. Frankl replied, "What kind of value system would I have to have, if I let my actions depend on whether I was going to get killed by Nazis and whether anyone was going to read the manuscript?" I admit to being hazy on the details of this story, but I am confident that I am getting the general idea.This movie follows detective-story conventions up to a point, and the point comes about ten minutes before the end of the movie. (Expect bigger and bigger spoilers as this review progresses.)Jerry Black is on his last day as sheriff of Reno, Nevada, land of ice fishing, Norwegians and hockey fans (the screenplay was written for Minnesota) and is ready to retire and go down to Mexico and fish, when he sits in on the botched arrest and interrogation of a mentally challenged Indian charged with the murder of a little girl. His successor has gotten a confession and is happy with the result. Jerry, who has sworn on the cross to the girl's mother to catch the killer, doesn't get on his plane. He goes out and interviews some big stars in cameo roles, and works out that there is a serial pedophile murderer out there, and figures out pretty much where he must live and some other things about him.Nobody else is willing to get on the trail, so Jerry devotes his life to the pursuit; he buys a live-in gas station / store and starts watching for suspects. He meets a woman (Lori, played by Robin Wright) with an abusive husband and a daughter in the predator's target zone; they move in with him, and he starts using the daughter as bait. There is a disturbing parallel between the way he grooms the daughter for her role and the way the predator himself must operate. It's not that he doesn't care for the daughter - he does - but he is taking clearly unethical risks with her, without cluing in the mother. In a usual movie, that would be enough of an issue. Also his obsession seems to be undermining his mental balance.Finally, after some red herrings, we get to the point (it is now fifteen minutes before the end of the movie) where the predator (identity unknown to Jerry) is expected to come for the girl. Jerry brings in his skeptical sheriff buddy with a SWAT team to surround the area, they wait, and -And the predator doesn't come. (Because, as we know, but nobody else in the movie realizes, he has had a fatal auto accident on the way there.) Jerry now loses everything. His cop friends write him off as a "drunk and a clown." Lori hates him and leaves. So far as he knows he has completely failed; the killer is still out there; his mind goes; he is left drinking and mumbling to himself in the ruins of his life. THE END.You can see how existential this all is. You try to live your life, accomplish something, catch the killer, roll a rock up the hill like Sisyphus; you give everything; and then something absurd happens and everything gets taken away from you, leaving you without even the knowledge that you've accomplished anything (if you have). That's life. That's mortality. That's what Stoics would say we just have to accept. I actually pretty much appreciate the point. And it was all done very competently by the ensemble. So I'm very glad I saw it. But if I hadn't had a Wikipedia article on Duerrenmatt on hand, as well as some previous encounters with postwar existentialist European thought, boy, would I have been grumpy about the whole thing.

A little girl is sexually assaulted and brutally murdered. The police fumble and prevaricate (why must it always be so?), closing the case on the basis of a confession extracted from a junkie - who conveniently shoots himself immediately thereafter - which has chasms larger than the Grand Canyon. It's left to Jerry Black, retired police detective, to have conscience qualms, meet the girl's shattered parents, and, on his soul's salvation, pledge (ergo, the film's title) to bring her killer to heel. He proceeds, on his investigation and to his department's obvious discomfiture, via the well trodden route of investigating similar crimes in the area around, in the past, etc etc.Thus far, it's run-of-the-mill - at least so far as the plot goes - and reasonably predictable. However, once Black (unforgettably brought to life by Jack Nicholson) gets set on the right track, and finds all his hunches, and inferences, to be justified, one by one, the script runs wildly off track.Now that, ordinarily, would be a criticism, rather than a compliment. However, in the case of "The Pledge", director Sean Penn - who has distinguished himself as much in the field of direction as in that of performing - carries us with the completely random flow of the events that unfold, each more unpredictable than the last. Till it all ends in a climax which, I am willing to wager, no one, absolutely no one who has been watching the lunatic turns the plot takes, could have predicted.Whether the end of the film is fulfilling, or not, is debatable. I don't really care. I only know that this is a film which I would unhesitatingly advise anyone, and everyone, who wants to know what imaginative filmmaking is all about, to see. It stands luminously aloft as an example of how, even while working within staid formulaic parentheses, something genuinely and gratifyingly creative can be crafted. By one who has the gumption to do so, and is willing to take the risks, however. Like Penn.