THE PLEDGE (2001)

Grade: B-

Director: Sean Penn

Screenplay: Jerzy Kromolowski, Mary Olson-Kromolowski

Starring: Jack Nicholson, Robin Wright Penn, Aaron Eckhart, Sam Shepard, Benicio Del Torro, Helen Mirren, Mickey Rourke, Vanessa Redgrave, Patricia Clarkson, Costas Mandylor, Michael O'Keefe, Tom Noonan, Harry Dean Stanton,

At first glance THE PLEDGE looks to be a standard detective thriller with moody, self-indulgent under tones (or overtones I suppose… I never got the difference between those two) what with an old cop on the brink of retirement sucked back in for one last murder investigation, forced into making a pledge to a young victim's parents that he'll find the killer. All this that is set up in the opening moments methodically sheds away until we're left with nothing but a dark character-piece about an obsessed man.

The film's central mystery is really a "Maguffin" used to draw audiences into a movie most of them probably wouldn't want to see. I say this because the picture, like director Sean Penn's others, is ceaselessly dark, engrossed with whatever is pessimistic in the world. His latest film is as problematic as his others with its Literary Symbolism 101 of soaring birds (I assume to represent the freedom the lead character doesn’t have), and ponderous slo-mo's set to the sound of a wailing female singer on the brink of a Bjork-like breakthrough. But despite this, the central story is strong and gripping enough to keep us involved to a point. The ending will be looked upon by many as a cheat because it doesn't follow the conventions of the genre the film appears to be setting up, but it isn’t, because by the end it should be clear that the film has no intention of being a genre film. Penn's picture is more about the pain of a man who has nothing left to do; though it's squeezed into a familiar three act structure.

On the day Jerry (Jack Nicholson) retires from the force, we see him peer out of the police department window to watch an old man tread across the street with a walker. Later he smiles ingratiatingly at his retirement party, though we can tell he doesn't mean it. He only perks up when the detectives have to make a sudden exit out of the party; a horrendous crime has been committed. A little girl is found dead in the snow. He tags along and becomes part of the case that will consume him. Jerry is one of these fellows who just can't retire. He realizes his life is empty without his job, so he clings to it, that commitment fueling him.

It's a shame, though, that Penn feels he has to resort to overwrought emotion to get his points across. He ruins perfectly good scenes because of his intent on amping up the emotional stakes; I'm thinking of a scene between Nicholson and Helen Mirren (as a psychiatrist) that ends with what looks like an explosion in the editing room. The scene is meant to illustrate Jack's further decent into nuttiness, but by that point I doubt Jerry's madness could elude even the dullest audience.

Penn fills his picture with stellar talent, some of whom we haven't seen in some time. Mickey Rourke appears long enough for us to wonder what exactly happened to him. He looks different, sounds different; there's hardly a glint of the mock-coolness he used to wear like a badge. It's been replaced through the years by a greying, chewed up complexion and, more inexplicably, a slight southern accent. But he does a fine job with his 50 second part, reminding us that he's still out there. Robin Wright Penn completely does away with any glamourousness, disappearing into her role of a kind, shy loner the way great character actors do. Vanessa Redgrave's eyes never seemed so blue and crystallized as the dead little girl's heartbroken grandmother.

One of the most interesting appearances is by B-movie actor Costas Mandloyr as a cop who gets an adrenaline rush out of being around death and destruction. In the one effectively creepy scene the actor is shirtless, working out in the police station while describing the murder of a little girl in the cadence of a jock going over his latest score. Though the chancy performances don’t always work, as in Benicio Del Torro's case. The actor plays a mentally handicapped suspect with an odd vocal tonation reminiscent of the Cookie Monster from SESAME STREET. His loopy line readings turn what was obviously supposed to be an intense scene into an unintentional giggle fest (ironically, it's the only laugh in the whole movie). And Harry Dean Stanton is curiously wasted, given a couple sentences before he disappears, but I 'm glad Penn included the guy; seeing him was a bit like getting a glimpse of an old friend you wished you got to see more often. Unlike Rourke, he doesn’t appear to have changed a bit.

As the film's anchor, Nicholson gives a sad understated performance with nary an eyebrow raise. Though it's been said by critics that Nicholson does some of his best work here, general audiences, who'd prefer the actor in full wily clown mode, will most likely be put off by it. He plays a pathetic man, a real human descending into the rock bottom, and I'm not sure how many will respond to that. Maybe with the same indifference with which most greeted Bill Murray's touchingly subtle performance in RUSHMORE.

When thinking about what I didn’t respond to I can’t help but come back to Sean Penn's direction. It seems redundant to say that he's a brilliant actor (which he clearly is) but as a director he has that just-out-of film school naivete about conveying emotion. Even at 40, he's directing like a gloomy adolescent. It's his direction that makes the movie less than what it could have been. He knows what he's doing with the actors, and this time he's chosen a good script (as opposed to trying to write it himself like he did with his previous efforts, THE INDIAN RUNNER and THE CROSSING GUARD). What I think will keep Sean Penn's works from being fully embraced as artistic achievements (which is clearly what his going for, it couldn't possibly be box office success) is his unwavering attraction to all that is sad and dismal. His films are humorless, portraying the world as a haven of broken dreams and painful memories where men's obsessions tear them apart from the inside out. I don’t deny that all this exists, but in Penn's world that's all that exists. The only happiness is off screen, in the past.

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