A little girl is brutally murdered on the day of Jack Nicholson’s retirement. The cops pin it on someone convenient, but Jack doesn’t buy it. He’s made a promise to the girl’s mother that he will find the killer. To him, that promise is binding. And thus begins his descent from respected cop to obsessed crazy person.
This movie was made extremely well, and it would probably be a great study in a film class. There is more than one way to interpret Jack’s moves throughout the film, and his acting is understated and brilliant. The movie is filled with big names and excellent actors who all perform beautifully.
Unfortunately, my living room is not a film class. I was bored silly for most of this movie. One of the tactics it takes is to show a lot of normal life, presumably to lull you into complacency. Normal life is boring. Seriously. There’s a lot of sitting around. A lot of fishing. I get and respect what Sean Penn was doing in this film, but I just couldn’t wait for it to end.
I did like this line, which is a commentary about the state of our world today:
I made a promise! You’re old enough to remember when that meant something.
My pledge to you is that I will never watch The Pledge again. (Unless it comes up in film school.)
Two stars.
[tags]Jack Nicholson, Robin Wright Penn, Sean Penn, murder, movie review[/tags]
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