The existential detective

>> A twisted Jack Nicholson pursues a serial killer in Sean Penn's The Pledge

by MATTHEW HAYS

The Pledge is another one of those films that will undoubtedly suffer greatly from its marketing. Telling by its trailer, this is a fast-moving, cop-and-serial-killer, virtuous-hero movie. But it's not.

Instead, director Sean Penn has delivered a thoughtful and sometimes gruelling character study, brought to life by irony icon Jack Nicholson. Nicholson plays a cop on his last day on the job. Navigating his way through a well-meaning retirement party thrown by his partners in crime-fighting, the farewell is interrupted by news of the murder of a young girl. Nicholson insists on applying his expertise to the crime; he also signs up for the unsavoury task of informing the dead girl's parents of her demise. At this crucial juncture, the now-daughterless mother grills Nicholson about his abilities to find the sicko who sliced and diced her offspring. Thus the title of the movie Nicholson's solemn vow--made under a cross made by the dead girl herself--which binds him to the serial killer.

Unlike the usual serial-killer fare, we're given no point-of-view shots from the murderer's perspective. Instead, virtually the entire film is told from Nicholson's perspective, which soon leads to certain key questions: how trustworthy is Nicholson's intuition? Is he onto something or merely paranoid?

The Pledge's plot thickens when Aaron Eckhart, one of Nicholson's fellow cops, works a confession out of a local native (Benicio Del Toro), with a history of drug abuse and a rape charge. Eckhart plays sleaze really, really well, continuing his litany of nastiness from In the Company of Men and Nurse Betty. Here, he gathers one of those confessions that seems highly precarious, at best. Nicholson, ever the doubter, isn't convinced they've got their man. He's also sure this murder is linked to two other unsolved child killings in the area.

With most of his former colleagues thinking he's gone soft in the head, Nicholson sticks to his pledge, pursuing the criminal on his own. He buys a gas station near where the killing took place, hoping to find his man. Nicholson's senses, somewhat diminished by age, strain to feel out any potential child killers in the vicinity.

It's an impressive performance by Nicholson, made all the more laudable by the fact that his detective is deeply flawed. Instead of sure-footed, confident heroism that assures us that we're all getting better and not older, Penn's film throws Nicholson's cop into an existential crunch. Though he's virtuous for sticking to his pledge, he's also someone who's clearly losing it, whose hunch is left open to question.

It's to Penn's credit that he's created a film this open-ended. Sadly, audience expectations may leave the film with a nasty box-office drop-off after opening weekend. The Pledge is simply not your average cop-pursues-the-killer movie.

The Pledge opens Friday, Jan. 19