Review of The Pledge (2001) by Alex M — 19 Jan 2004

[size=3]Acclaimed actor Sean Penn takes another step in his maturation behind the camera by directing this creepy, unconventional thriller starring the great Jack Nicholson. What begins as a standard police procedural involving the search for a child killer develops into a fascinating and somewhat disturbing story of obsession and paranoia. Nicholson plays a cop who is preparing to retire when he is summoned to the scene of a grisly murder in which the victim is an 8 year-old girl. When the local officers get skittish about volunteering for the task, Nicholson agrees to be the one to break the news to the girl's parents. Predictably distraught, the girl's highly religious mother makes Nicholson take a pledge that he will find the girl's killer and bring him to justice. The police appear to have their man, but something about the situation troubles Nicholson, and he resolves to continue the investigation (even though he is now officially retired). What is so engaging about Penn's film is that we're never entirely sure whether the killer is still on the loose or whether Nicholson is simply doomed to a lifelong pledge. Nicholson sets up a new life in a small roadside gas station, and soon befriends a 40-ish mother and her young daughter. What seems like an innocently developing domestic home reveals itself to be an elaborate trap set by Nicholson to capture the killer. And so while we instinctively identify with Nicholson, his actions leave us feeling uneasy and deeply nervous about the child's fate. Penn revels in the ambiguity of the movie's central story, and trusts his lead actor to carry us through. This movie, along with 2002's [i]About Schmidt[/i], demonstrates Nicholson at his restrained best (oddly, both share the theme of anxiety over growing old and retiring). He never grandstands, is always internalizing his motives, and is all the more engaging for it. The film's failure to find an audience is not really perplexing considering the frustrating (yet masterfully executed) development at the end of the film. American movies so often have the hero either win or lose in a confrontation with the villain...but they hardly ever refuse the hero any sense of closure. Penn's film does, and it only adds another dimension to this fascinating film that puts a unique spin on a routine story.[/size].

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