The Pledge
by Sean Penn
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Beau Daniels, Benicio Del Toro, Dale Dickey, Jack Nicholson, Patricia ClarksonDirector: Sean Penn
Brand: Warner Brothers
Producer: Andrew Stevens
Producer: Brian W. Cook
Producer: Don Carmody
Producer: Elie Samaha
Writer: Friedrich D?rrenmatt
Writer: Jerzy Kromolowski
Writer: Mary Olson-Kromolowski
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 5.1; English (Subtitled); French (Subtitled)
Format: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, NTSC, Widescreen
Picture Format: 2.35:1
Running Time: 124 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2001-06-19
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: Warner Home Video
Movie Reviews of The Pledge
Movie Review: Penn makes good on The Pledge
Summary: 4 Stars
On the day of his retirement, Reno homicide cop Jack Nicholson investigates the brutal small-town murder of an eight-year-old girl and promises the distraught mother that he will find the killer. Seen fleeing the scene, retarded Indian Benicio Del Toro is apprehended the next day and confesses before killing himself in custody. It doesn't sit right with Nicholson, who delves into similar crimes unsolved in Nevada. Finding a link with two other cases, Nicholson baits a trap for a killer who might still be out there waiting to prey on young victims. Friedrich Durrenmatt's story It Happened in Broad Daylight has been filmed before as The Cold Light of Day, a 1995 Dutch film starring Richard E. Grant and set anonymously in eastern Europe. Sean Penn places his version precisely in the harsh landscape of the American West, the small town's clapboard buildings puny and inadequate in the shadow of the snow-peaked Sierras. Durrenmatt's schematic crime drama thus becomes more metaphysical character study than psycho-thriller, and in Nicholson's admirably restrained performance the obsessive detective is a noble melancholy loner, fascinating and deeply flawed. Good intentions, it seems, are sometimes not enough and Nicholson's sad character loses the plot. Penn calls his version The Pledge, but it could as well have been called The Secret. Nicholson unwisely keeps his counsel and it has devastating consequences for him as well as the mother, daughter and suspect. The only ones he tells the truth are his former colleagues on the force, and they don't believe him. The casting throughout is canny: Penn not only makes shrewdly judged use of the saturnine Del Toro's feral features but also puts Tom Noonan in a pivotal role. The softly spoken, apparently benign Noonan, of course, carries the imprint of his creepy depiction of Tooth Fairy serial-killer Francis Dollarhyde in Manhunter, Michael Mann's masterful version of Red Dragon. In tone and bleak visual grandeur, Penn's picture resembles Paul Schrader's unforgiving film Affliction, and - as Nicholson rails in the wind against the random injustice of it all - it leaves a similarly haunting impression.
Summary of The Pledge
The suspect confessed to the murder then took his own life. Case closed? not for homicide cop jerry black. He has his own instincts about the crime. And even though hes ready to begin a gone-fishin retirement he promised the victims family hed find the killer. Studio: Warner Home Video Release Date: 09/25/2007 Starring: Jack Nicholson Benicio Del Toro Run time: 124 minutes Rating: R Director: Sean PennJack Nicholson is detective Jerry Black, a respected and well-liked veteran of the Reno police force retiring to a life of angling with more than a little apprehension. Thus he jumps into a murder case, the slaying of a little girl, a mere six hours from retirement and makes a promise to the grieving mother to catch the killer. As his partner (an effectively abrasive Aaron Eckhart) squeezes a confession out of the severely mentally handicapped suspect (a thoroughly unsettling performance by Benicio Del Toro), Jerry is convinced that they've got the wrong man.
As in Sean Penn's previous work, this is an actors' piece. Nicholson plays Jerry with restlessness under his easy-going, smiling calm; his patient fisherman's heart leaps at every nibble while he casts for a murder suspect. And Del Toro, Helen Mirren, Vanessa Redgrave, and Mickey Rourke make striking impressions in their single-scene appearances. Penn is less concerned with the mystery than the emotional turmoil and Jerry's state of mind, interrupting moments of calm with jagged cuts and discomforting images (including some especially disturbing crime scene photos). Jerry's instincts and methods are sound and his sensitivity is real--he takes in a battered single mom (Robin Wright Penn) and her little girl, and develops a rewarding family life--but his passion for justice turns to unhealthy, destructive obsession. That's ultimately what we're left with at the conclusion of this often off-putting but ultimately fascinating film. The truth will not always set you free. --Sean Axmaker
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