The Pledge from way back in 2001 is a tense cop drama with a star studded cast. So how has it flown under my radar for so long? Why isn't this remembered I the same way as Seven or Silence of the Lambs? Despite boasting a stellar cast including Benicio del Toro, Helen Mirren, Harry Dean Stanton, Mickey Rourke, Vanessa Redgrave et Al and being led of course by the inimitable Jack Nicholson, all but Jack only play cameo roles, they're on screen for a couple of minutes a piece and then are never seen or heard of again. The first half of the movie is a belter, but hits the viewer with some genuinely gut renching images which are gratuitous imo, do we really need to see this? The second half becomes a complete mess, however as our man Jack sets out to plan and execute an elaborate trap to snare the killer. The plan involves buying a gas station and insinuating his way into the life of a single mother who just happens to have a daughter who fits the killer's victims profile perfectly. Oh and let's not forget all this is based on a child's drawing of a very tall man with a black car. Really? Who in their right mind spends their retirement like that? But here's the rub, Jacky boy isn't in his right mind. Could he be the killer? Spoiler alert! No. As soon as Tom Noonan appears as a creepy priest the jig is up. For anyone who recognized Tom Noonan as the tooth fairy from Micheal Mann's Red Dragon we know very well who the killer is. It's a shocking piece of casting which pretty much kills the movie off. So after a tedious half hour the trap is set, the little girl is bait, the SWAT team are ready to pounce, the killer is en route. Then the killer drives head on into a truck and is burned alive in the wreckage, the SWAT team get bored of waiting and go home, the girl's mother shows up and realized she and her daughter are being used and Jack becomes a gibering alcoholic necking booze Infront of his shut down gas station in the final scene, a play back of the first scene. That is so lame and must go down as the most anticlimactic endings since "Then I woke up and it was all a dream". Still, it's now available on Netflix if you've got two hours to waist.
Review of The Pledge
