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The Pledge (2001)
 
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Directed
by:
Sean Penn |
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COUNTRY
USA |
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GENRE
Drama/Mystery |
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NORWEGIAN TITLE
Mistanken |
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RUNNING
TIME
123 minutes |
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Produced
by:
Michael Fitzgerald
Sean Penn
Elie Samatha |
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Written by
(based on a book by Friedrich Dürrenmatt):
Jerzy Kromolowski
Mary Olson-Kromolowski |
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Cast includes:
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CHARACTER |
ACTOR/ACTRESS |
RATING |
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Jerry Black |
Jack Nicholson |
 ½ |
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Margaret Larsen |
Patricia Clarkson |
½ |
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Toby Jay Wadenah |
Benicio del
Toro |
|
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Stan Krolak |
Aaron Eckhart |
½ |
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Doctor |
Helen Mirren |
- |
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Gary Jackson |
Tom Noonan |
- |
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Lori |
Robin Wright Penn |
½ |
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Annalise Hansen |
Vanessa Redgrave |
- |
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Jim Olstad |
Mickey Rourke |
- |
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Eric Pollack |
Sam Shepard |
- |
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Floyd Cage |
Harry Dean Stanton |
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Strom |
Dale Dickey |
- |
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Monash Deputy |
Costas Mandylor |
- |
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Duane Larsen |
Michael O'Keefe |
- |
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Helen Jackson |
Lois Sith |
- |
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Becky Fiske |
Brittany Tiplady |
- |
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Jean |
Eileen Ryan |
- |
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Chrissy |
Pauline Roberts |
½ |
Review
In his third film as a director, Sean
Penn continued his thematic lines from his first two movies,
The
Indian Runner and
The Crossing Guard: low-key,
introspective dissections of the flaws and complexities of human
nature. Jack Nicholson plays a soon-to-be-retired police detective
who isn't satisfied with his department's solving of a brutal child
murder and sets out to find what he believes to be an alternate
version of the truth and the real killer. Penn paces his film
slowly, with a particular regard for the characters and their inner
workings. His cinematic world is a comfortable place to spend time
in, even when the subject matter is as grim as it is in this story.
Adapted from a 1958 book by Swiss author Friedrich Dürrenmatt,
The Pledge aims to demonstrate that real-life police work is
less straightforward and more frustrating than is often the case in
crime fiction and film. Unfortunately, Penn fails to instill
authenticity in some pivotal plot developments in the film's final
third, which lessens its impact. Nicholson's relationships with Lori
(Robin Wright Penn) and her daughter, Chrissy, lack a solid
foundation. The romance is not sufficiently motivated, and the girl
playing Chrissy is too old and seems far too worldly for her
character's naivety. There is also an imbalance in the depiction of
Tom Noonan's character in this part, which makes the ending somewhat
perplexing – and not in a good way.
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