THE PLEDGE
Directed by Sean Penn
Written by Jerzy Kromolowski and Mary Olson-Kromolowski
Starring Jack Nicholson, Patricia Clarkson, Benicio Del Toro, Robin Wright
Released 2001
Directed by Sean Penn
Written by Jerzy Kromolowski and Mary Olson-Kromolowski
Starring Jack Nicholson, Patricia Clarkson, Benicio Del Toro, Robin Wright
Released 2001
One of the true joys of watching a movie can be the way we forget that we are watching a movie. The people who ran the cameras, the actors, the writers, the lighting specialists, the grip, the best boy, the script doctors, the casting directors, the make-up artists, the folks in charge of marketing: these people and dozens more go into the creation of a film. Yet, sometimes, if everyone involved soars and we are blessed with some dandy fine luck, the movie pulls us in while we project ourselves onto a character on screen and next thing you know, we are no longer watching a picture. We are on the edges of something real.
For most of the 2001 film, The Pledge, that is exactly what is happening. Director Sean Penn brought together some of the great talents of modern film, hooked them onto a script based on a novella by Friedrich Durrenmatt, and exercised what feels like the patience of the guy who wrote the story of Job in showing us a tale that hits on more than a few levels, some emotional, some cerebral, some artistic.
Jack Nicholson plays Jerry Black, a retiring police detective working in Nevada. With six hours left on the job and during his retirement party, Jerry offers to assist in an investigation of the brutal murder of a young girl. The police have a witness to the immediate after effects of the crime, a young boy who never says much, but who admits he has seen a tall Native American in a maroon truck leaving the scene of the crime. The police pick up the suspect, a man who turns out to be mentally retarded.
Here is where this movie becomes occasionally fascinating. Just when we suspect that we know (from our experience as viewers of many a police drama) just what is going to happen, we encounter all these whacked out characters. First we meet Stan, a competent, competitive pretty boy played by Aaron Eckhart. We suspect he is a foil for Jerry, yet he does the retired detective favors above and beyond the call of duty, suggesting that Stan has, at a minimum, a grudging respect for the old timer. Then we meet Annalise Hansen, otherwise known as Vanessa Redgrave, and we can't decide if the old woman is crazy as a loon or simply in awe over the death of her grandchild. In turn, the child's parents feel a bit deranged, although, again, we can't be sure. Indeed, throughout the film, it becomes more and more challenging to work out in our collective minds whether we are seeing the characters the way they are or the way Jerry sees them.
It turns out that some strikingly similar crimes have been committed over the previous few years and Jerry, though retired, becomes obsessed with keeping his promise to the murdered girl's mother that he will solve the case. He meets with Mickey Rourke, who plays the institutionalized father of one of the other victims. He buys a gas station from Harry Dean Stanton, who takes his family to Arizona. And he meets a charming bartender named Lori, played to positive perfection by Robin Wright. Lori has a young daughter who reminds Jerry of the victim.
It is Jerry's obsession with the crime and the way this obsession parallels his own apparent psychological disintegration that moves the movie along. Well, that and the fact that we are privileged to encounter some of the finest acting talent all in the same motion picture, even if Rourke and Stanton are not given all that much to do. Ultimately, it's Nicholson and Wright who lock up the magnificence of this film by appearing to be the farthest thing in the world from "movie stars." It's hard work being this good and everyone involved shines without yielding to the impulse to sparkle.
We get clever camera work that does not announce itself as such. We get a chase scene that involves cattle. We get nothing that we expect and everything we want.
Mostly what we get is characterization, probably the most difficult thing to pull off in a movie, where time constraints demand that a mere gesture imply things about the person on screen. Nicholson, who elsewhere on occasion has merged nuance with mugging for the camera, is as unself-conscious here as in any role he has ever done. When he meets Lori the bartender, we hope they will get together, and despite a certain contrived approach to this, we feel satisfied when it happens and never question any of their motives.
Still, the dead girl's parents show up in this new town.
The boy who saw the Indian leaving the scene of the crime rides by in a parade.
And Jerry meets a psychiatrist who asks him if he hears voices.
A few items never quite get resolved, most of them involving the dead girl's family, as well as the real identity of the killer, although here we are given enough information to make a very good guess. Maybe that doesn't matter anyway because this movie does not focus on facts so much as it does perceptions: those of the actors, the characters they play, the way we in the audience see them. Perceptions are all we have, as human beings. We can never be much more than dutiful agnostics, knowing that we can't know anything for certain, yet doomed to exist in a world that demands we pretend to be sure of everything. It's just that kind of tug between forces that drives a man like Jerry Black to madness. It may even be something we recognize in ourselves.
For most of the 2001 film, The Pledge, that is exactly what is happening. Director Sean Penn brought together some of the great talents of modern film, hooked them onto a script based on a novella by Friedrich Durrenmatt, and exercised what feels like the patience of the guy who wrote the story of Job in showing us a tale that hits on more than a few levels, some emotional, some cerebral, some artistic.
Jack Nicholson plays Jerry Black, a retiring police detective working in Nevada. With six hours left on the job and during his retirement party, Jerry offers to assist in an investigation of the brutal murder of a young girl. The police have a witness to the immediate after effects of the crime, a young boy who never says much, but who admits he has seen a tall Native American in a maroon truck leaving the scene of the crime. The police pick up the suspect, a man who turns out to be mentally retarded.
Here is where this movie becomes occasionally fascinating. Just when we suspect that we know (from our experience as viewers of many a police drama) just what is going to happen, we encounter all these whacked out characters. First we meet Stan, a competent, competitive pretty boy played by Aaron Eckhart. We suspect he is a foil for Jerry, yet he does the retired detective favors above and beyond the call of duty, suggesting that Stan has, at a minimum, a grudging respect for the old timer. Then we meet Annalise Hansen, otherwise known as Vanessa Redgrave, and we can't decide if the old woman is crazy as a loon or simply in awe over the death of her grandchild. In turn, the child's parents feel a bit deranged, although, again, we can't be sure. Indeed, throughout the film, it becomes more and more challenging to work out in our collective minds whether we are seeing the characters the way they are or the way Jerry sees them.
It turns out that some strikingly similar crimes have been committed over the previous few years and Jerry, though retired, becomes obsessed with keeping his promise to the murdered girl's mother that he will solve the case. He meets with Mickey Rourke, who plays the institutionalized father of one of the other victims. He buys a gas station from Harry Dean Stanton, who takes his family to Arizona. And he meets a charming bartender named Lori, played to positive perfection by Robin Wright. Lori has a young daughter who reminds Jerry of the victim.
It is Jerry's obsession with the crime and the way this obsession parallels his own apparent psychological disintegration that moves the movie along. Well, that and the fact that we are privileged to encounter some of the finest acting talent all in the same motion picture, even if Rourke and Stanton are not given all that much to do. Ultimately, it's Nicholson and Wright who lock up the magnificence of this film by appearing to be the farthest thing in the world from "movie stars." It's hard work being this good and everyone involved shines without yielding to the impulse to sparkle.
We get clever camera work that does not announce itself as such. We get a chase scene that involves cattle. We get nothing that we expect and everything we want.
Mostly what we get is characterization, probably the most difficult thing to pull off in a movie, where time constraints demand that a mere gesture imply things about the person on screen. Nicholson, who elsewhere on occasion has merged nuance with mugging for the camera, is as unself-conscious here as in any role he has ever done. When he meets Lori the bartender, we hope they will get together, and despite a certain contrived approach to this, we feel satisfied when it happens and never question any of their motives.
Still, the dead girl's parents show up in this new town.
The boy who saw the Indian leaving the scene of the crime rides by in a parade.
And Jerry meets a psychiatrist who asks him if he hears voices.
A few items never quite get resolved, most of them involving the dead girl's family, as well as the real identity of the killer, although here we are given enough information to make a very good guess. Maybe that doesn't matter anyway because this movie does not focus on facts so much as it does perceptions: those of the actors, the characters they play, the way we in the audience see them. Perceptions are all we have, as human beings. We can never be much more than dutiful agnostics, knowing that we can't know anything for certain, yet doomed to exist in a world that demands we pretend to be sure of everything. It's just that kind of tug between forces that drives a man like Jerry Black to madness. It may even be something we recognize in ourselves.
