On 2009-03-17 Montague Smith, Thailand wrote: On the day of his retirement, Reno homicide cop Jack Nicholson investigates the brutal small-town murder of an eight-year-old girl and promises the distraught mother that he will find the killer. Seen fleeing the scene, retarded Indian Benicio Del Toro is apprehended the next day and confesses before killing himself in custody. It doesn´t sit right with Nicholson, who delves into similar crimes unsolved in Nevada. Finding a link with two other cases, Nicholson baits a trap for a killer who might still be out there waiting to prey on young victims. Friedrich Durrenmatt´s story It Happened in Broad Daylight has been filmed before as The Cold Light of Day, a 1995 Dutch film starring Richard E. Grant and set anonymously in eastern Europe. Sean Penn places his version precisely in the harsh landscape of the American West, the small town´s clapboard buildings puny and inadequate in the shadow of the snow-peaked Sierras. Durrenmatt´s schematic crime drama thus becomes more metaphysical character study than psycho-thriller, and in Nicholson´s admirably restrained performance the obsessive detective is a noble melancholy loner, fascinating and deeply flawed. Good intentions, it seems, are sometimes not enough and Nicholson´s sad character loses the plot. Penn calls his version The Pledge, but it could as well have been called The Secret. Nicholson unwisely keeps his counsel and it has devastating consequences for him as well as the mother, daughter and suspect. The only ones he tells the truth are his former colleagues on the force, and they don´t believe him. The casting throughout is canny: Penn not only makes shrewdly judged use of the saturnine Del Toro´s feral features but also puts Tom Noonan in a pivotal role. The softly spoken, apparently benign Noonan, of course, carries the imprint of his creepy depiction of Tooth Fairy serial-killer Francis Dollarhyde in Manhunter, Michael Mann´s masterful version of Red Dragon. In tone and bleak visual grandeur, Penn´s picture resembles Paul Schrader´s unforgiving film Affliction, and - as Nicholson rails in the wind against the random injustice of it all - it leaves a similarly haunting impression. . And summed up by saying Penn makes good on The Pledge. Currently The Pledge has an overall rating of 6 over 10.
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Andrew Stevens claimed THE SUSPECT CONFESSED TO THE MURDER, THEN TOOK HIS OWN LIFE.CASE CLOSED? NOT FOR HOMICIDE COP JERRY BLACK. HE HAS HIS OWN INSTINCTS ABOUT THE CRIME. AND EVEN THOUGH HE´S READY TO BEGINA GONE-FISHIN´ RETIREMENT, HE PROMISED THE VICTIM´S FAMILY HE´D FIND THE KILLER.
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