THE PLEDGE (2001)

Drama. Directed by Sean Penn. Starring Jack Nicholson, Robin Wright Penn, Helen Mirren, Benecio Del Toro, Sam Shepherd, Aaron Eckhart, Patricia Clarkson, Mickey Rourke, Vanessa Redgrave.

Synopsis: A retiring Reno detective gets involved with a case about the brutal murder of a young  child, and promises on his soul to her parents that he will see her killer caught. A suspect is soon apprehended, but he begins to doubt that this man was the real killer. His obssession with the case and his pledge follows him into retirement and affects his new relationship with a younger woman and her child.

I have some mixed feelings in talking to you about this one. On the one hand, you have to appreciate any serious effort to put together a solid cast in a gripping story and make something that is not so overtly commercial. Look at the names in this cast and tell me how much it would cost you to have them in a summer time box office blockbuster popcorn flick...I don't know...a hundred million to start?

So, you have to really appreciate as a movie fan that so many actors used to seeing their names near the top of the billing were willing to take relatively minor roles since they believed in this project (e.g. Mirren, Redgrave, Shepherd, Rourke, Eckhart, Clarkson)  And, they all come to play. To use another sports cliche, no one "mails it in" even when they only have a scene or two in the film.

But, on the other hand, I have to say that the story, while compelling and with a lot of promise, just moves very slowly and doesn't ever really "find itself". (I'm in the cliche mood today, for some reason...oh well, I'll just have to "push through it" and "get it done") And, I'm not even sure how to describe it any better than that.

Jerry Black (Jack Nicholson,Hoffa, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest) is a retiring Reno cop who literally leaves his retirement party to pitch in on an ivestigation into the murder of a little girl. In helping out the locals who don't have as much experience as the big city guys, Black has the unpleasant duty of telling the parents what has happened to their daughter. They take it very hard, and the mother (Patricia Clarkson The Woods The Dead Pool) extracts a promise from Black that he will see the girl's killer caught on his soul.

Things seem to be going well when, very soon, a mentally unbalanced suspect is in custody (Benecio Del Toro The Hunted, Sin City) who soon confesses thanks to the aggressive interrogation of a young detective (Aaron Eckhart Thank You for Smoking, Suspect Zero). Black, watching the interrogation from behind a one way mirror, has reservations about the way things are going from the get go, even before the suspect confesses. But, its all for naught as the suspect grabs a gun and manages to kill himself in the police station. Case closed, right?

Well, not so fast.

Even as he moves into the wilderness to live a life of solitude, Black can't get the case out of his mind and even continues an informal investigation, which leads him to believe that there is a serial killer of little children on the loose. This does not stop him from buying a small store and meeting a single mother (Robin Wright Penn), but the case does not leave his mind, becoming more of an obssession, to the point where he thinks the killer is right in his backyard and his new girlfriend's child is in immediate danger.

Its this part of the flick, the last 2/3 leading up to the disappointing conclusion, that are a problem for me. The story drags when it shouldn't, and director Sean Penn takes too long in some key instances to build up suspenseful questions that will, ultimately, go unanswered. Understand that 60% of this movie is just Nicholson and/or Robin Wright Penn, most of the names on the dvd box have brief scenes.

I'm not saying it should have been an ensemble cast movie with everyone getting equal time. And Nicholson and Robin Wright Penn are both very good in their roles, particularly Nicholson as we see him go from obssession to mental instability. Its the story that I'm not totally buying, mainly because I don't know what it was trying to say.

Perhaps this is just a case of expectations that were unfairly too high, I don't know. To use my last sports analogy, I was expecting a home run here and what I got was a fly ball to deep center field. Can't say it wasn't a hell of an effort, but still disappointed.

I wonder what you will think of The Pledge.