JustWatch Streaming Info | imdb | trailer
I avoided this movie for years because of the cheesy TV ads, and yeah the above linked trailer is pretty bad too. Director Sean Penn is a bit of a wild card, which probably didn’t help either. However I gave it a watch just recently and was pleasantly surprised at how satisfying the film is. It does suffer from some of that big budget movie falseness, but none of it was too distracting. Thankfully there are more positives than negatives on display. In my book, this one and The Departed are tied for Jack Nicholson’s best late career performances. The other actors are pretty much all familiar faces, and they do a fine job as well. The reason this one stands out is that it is a remarkably dark movie and the ending is something I’ve never quite seen before. It is also worth noting that The Pledge is based on Friedrich Dürrenmatt’s 1958 novella, and was made into several other films before this one. The first adaptation was called It Happened in Broad Daylight, and is still considered an excellent movie (I just added it to my watch list). The interesting thing is that Sean Penn’s version, written by Jerzy Kromolowski and Mary Olson-Kromolowski, is the most faithful to the novella. Yes, this definitely isn’t Chinatown, but it’s a solid crime thriller that I feel is worth your time.
Available on Blu-ray from Morgan Creek
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