Customer Reviews

The Pledge (Widescreen)

5 star:		(53)
4 star:		(25)
3 star:		(23)
2 star:		(33)
1 star:		(31)

 

 

Most movies that I think are "good" stay with me for a few days afterward. Many really good ones stay with me for far longer than that (I am still brooding about 21 Grams...). I think I am canny enough to recognize the flaws in this movie, but, despite any flaw, I am still thinking about this film...

What would lead Jerry Black to do such a monstrous thing as bait a trap with a child he loves? Obsession, maybe. Madness impending. Desperation to stop a monster in its tracks? Whatever: It's killin me.

I have small children. Since starting my family I have steered pretty clear of movies involving child-centered violence or violation, but the lure of Penn and Nicholson got the better of me. I sat folding laundry as I watched this movie late at night, and I wept copiously through at least three scenes (thanks, Vanessa Redgrave and Patricia Clarkson). I could not stop. The premise is monstrous and the actors absolutely and precisely execute grief and pain.

The ending is elliptical, but that's the point. This movie is very good. It'll gnaw at you.

Jack Nicholson gives a very even keeled performance, restraining his natural essence to give a somewhat schizod personality to his character. Sean Penn lets the story unfold artistically, not giving away to much so we are surprised at what happens next. It is not a happy upbeat film and seems to be mainly a character study of a retired police cop, who really has not ever had a intimate relationship with anyone and hasn't gotten close enough to make friends with anybody in his force. They know him and respect him, yet there isn't that really cool camaraderie which goes with being really important to someone. The theme revolves around child sexual abuse and homicide, not a pretty picture. Jerry, Nicholson, becomes obsessed with the case and makes a pledge to the mother that he will find the killer. Intuitively, he knows that the wrong person got nabbed. A virtuoso performance by Del Toro and Eckerson. A real creepy confession, another artful turn by the director to take us off the beaten path. Jerry pledges to find the truth out and things seem to be going good, until a turn of fate, causing the cookie to crumble, a matter of speaking, I don' want to divulge to much, the cookie is Jerry. I really liked the film and recommend it.

(...)

Most of the reviewers of this film have hit the nail on the head. The script simply is not believable. Everything else is there: the usual impeccable performance by Jack Nicholson, the supporting cast up to par, and Penn grows as a director, perhaps not quite relaxed or self-confident enough to let things flow once in a while, instead of holding such tight reins over each moment of the film. One assumes he will eventually become one of our country's great directors.

OK. As the film moves forward, it becomes more and more unbelievable. And at its end, the viewer cannot be sure whether the main character has gone insane or is simply very, very drunk. This great drunkenness, by the way, has never before been revealed in the film. Nicholson's character has been sober throughout. We are informed of this problem by another character near the film's ending.

While truth stretches truth, one only hopes that these wonderful performers will better themselves with more honest, quality scripts in future. The movie is worth it for the performances, I suppose. But five thumbs down on the story!

This is an unsatisfying, uncomfortable movie. Without giving away the plot, it involves a retired police officer who has made a promise to find a child-murderer. But the child in question was killed on his last day of work. And a would-be murderer confesses, then kills him self. But when Jerry Black retires, he still plans to find the killer.

Using fishing as a metaphor, he sets bait for the killer. This is when the movie becomes uncomfortable. Perhaps it's simply the way Black goes about this, but his "good deed" of keeping his promise is annuled by the way in which he goes about it.

In addition, the ending is far too vague, though it's almost worth watching the movie just for the last shot seeing Jack Nicholoson shaking his fist, drunk, mumbling to himself. Vintage Nicholson.

This movie is very good, as other reviewers have said, it has an exceptional direction and some very good acting by almost every character on the film. As I could read, many people weren't happy with the ending (which I won't tell here, that's not the idea) but I encourage thriller fans to watch it and then stablish their own criteria about it. I do liked it and I gave it only 4 stars just because the DVD has not many things to explore, just the theatrical trailer and the cast and crew section...the movie itself, just excellent!

I, like many of the reviewers, really admired the quality of acting and direction in this film. It draws you into the mystery like a Hitchcock film, as it mesmerizes and enchants like Atom Egyoyan's "The Sweet Hereafter". Nicholson is far too often typecast as an abrasive maverick and in this film he is able to show off another side of his acting skills. Also, Penn has come a long way since the days of Sonic Youth's aptly titled "Crucifixion of Sean Penn". However...there were ways of ending this film in a non-mainstream way without resorting to cheap tactics. Just having everything cave in for the hero in the final moment is generally not an effective literary device, not much better than everything suddenly turning out great for the hero, as is often done in Holywood. The main conflict is keeping his pledge without putting the family at risk. It would have been better if he did capture and kill the serial killer, but in the crossfire the girl got injured and the mother dumped him as a result. That way he could have had the satisfaction of being right, but would also have been penalized for putting the girl in danger and not being honest with the mother. The film could then have had a bitter sweet ending that better suited the theme. He would have been forced to sacrifice his love of a family for higher justice and the viewers would have been left with a lot of material for discussion about the moral dilema he faced. It seems like Penn just wanted Nicholson to look like Gene Hackman in "The Conversation" sitting there in his dismantled room playing his sax in a state of dishelvelment and paranoia.

I once knew a 13-year-old kid who decided to enter a short story contest by writing a piece of fiction about a bank robbery.

The story was pretty simple and straightforward. Four disaffected teenagers want to buy a car and drive out to California, but they don't have any money. One thing leads to another, and they rob a bank, using toy guns. They buy a car, drive to California, and live on the beach near Santa Monica, having completed the perfect caper.

Once the kids get to California, the story ended, sort of like this: "One day they were crossing the street and everybody got run over by a truck. The End."

Needless to say, "The" Ending for "The Pledge" is a lot like that. Otherwise, the story isn't bad, and the acting certainly isn't bad. Personally, I liked the direction and cinematography.

How entertaining is it? I'll put it this way - I was interested enough that I watched the thing all the way through, which is an acheivement in itself, since I find Jack Nicholson's "Man-driven-crazy" acts too tired.

However, as an intellectual execise, "The Pledge" is a joke. If the end of this movie was any more improbable, it would have drawn hoots and guffawws from any alert audience.

Seems like so many people didn't enjoy this one. I wonder why. Sean Penn proves he's a worthwhile director, he sets things up in an interesting way and what about Jack's performance? I personally didn't care much for Something Gotta Give, here Jack seems to be more in his stride.

Jack Nicholson. Sean Penn. Benicio Del Toro. These three names alone will bring mainstream viewers to this film; however 90% of them will be expecting Hollywood and 90% will walk away from this film because they have just watched something closer to art-house cinema than the A-list Hollywood affair that it promotes.

The Pledge is akin to watching something like Dead Man Walking minus the Hollywood plot devices or Spike Lee's Summer of Sam without the pace. It certainly is not like Silence of the Lambs, Seven or Psycho as some have been thinking. If your expectations are Hollywood, then forget it. You will only be disappointed. If you are looking for a serial killer film that moves in a more realistic fashion with non-mainstream plot elements then The Pledge will deliver.

There are a number of things that make this film different. Nicholson's character is more obsessive and paranoid but keeps his cool for the most part of this film. He also befriends a woman half his age and this is not your typical Hollywood bonding. The actual investigation of the serial killings is more or less played out in a very realistic way, often boring and never really seems to amount to much. The crime evidence is hard to obtain and the investigation leads are miniscule (as with most real-life cases). For this reason Nicholson's character is mostly trying to grasp at straws which leaves him on the ignore list at his former police department. In retirement he buys a filling station and tags cars that he believes could be connected with the crimes. The crimes themselves are brutal and VERY GRAPHIC. There are a number of scenes depicting child murders that are very disturbing.

The film's realism is what makes it so good. It is slow and often may seem boring, but this is daring and the director should be appreciated for not doing what WE HAVE SEEN A HUNDRED TIMES BEFORE. The fact is that most serial killer flicks are clichéd driven but here Penn takes us on a very different journey from a lot of different angles. In short, this film is much closer to a real-life hunt for a serial killer than any other mainstream Hollywood murder mystery flick.

The ending will annoy some, but personally I love it. I think that the ending is very suitable for the material at hand because in most cases serial killers, who are not caught, are either - dead/have gone insane/have been locked up for another unrelated crime. So this film really does play out the realism very well. I also like the fact that certain plot elements are left unknown to many of the characters. This is a very good character device and you do not see that done very often.

This is a very original movie that stays on rational ground. The scene where the cops decide to tell the parents of a dead girl what has happened is absolutely one of the most troubling things any human being can do and it is just done so well in this movie. I can not see how this film fails to engage anyone with a heart. This is a touching film - a touching journey into the darker crossings in life that some do go through.

This is a very good movie with some "reservations" for those who hate anything less than "mainstream" murder mysteries.

We all know Nicholson can act. And tha''s the only thing worthwhile in this movie: to watch him interpret in a great and convincing manner a retired cop haunted by a Pledge to solve the murder of a little girl. But that's all you will get from this movie, fellow.

Penn's direction is slow, uninspiring. No, I'm not just another fast-food film consumer. But it was clear for me that Penn tried to design a special mood for the film, but id not work. The cast is also misleading to potential audience: we've got the names of Del Toro and Rourke: they appear briefly, no more than four minutes, probably paying some kind of favor to Penn.

It was not a total waste of time, but it came close. MOvies like Charlie's Angels are a TOTAL waste of time because they're total junk; movies like this one comes close because they heroically try to be bigger than they really are, and it does not always work.