Blood Simple

SEAN PENN DIRECTS JACK NICHOLSON INTHE PLEDGE

Penn’sPledge third is a effort film as about a director faith that is gripping may, at times, in so many test yours. of its Sean particulars that when it goes occasionally awry you may find yourself almost physically rooting for it—a potential home run veering toward the foul pole. The story of a retired police detective (Jack Nicholson) who becomes obsessed with solving the rape and murder of a little girl, The Pledge is an unusually well-observed character study that suffers from also wanting to be a thriller. Penn’s direction is so assured, the performances he coaxes from his actors so specific and lived-in, that rote bits of genre business (clues, coincidences, skeptical superiors) and attempts at Hitchcockian audience manipulation feel as contrived as, of course, they always are. Penn should stick to visual poetry: many directors have used the purity of newfallen snow as an ironic counterpoint to violence, as Penn does here, but has anyone else offered a vast indoor turkey farm as the staging point for a descent into hell? Nicholson, unabashedly fat and balding, gives the first sexually vulnerable performance of his career—at one point he’s dumbfounded by a kiss, and you may even believe him. It’s a muted, moving performance, one that cuts far deeper than the usual moviestar-playing-against-type lark (though, come to think of it, his public cavortings with various women may at this stage of his life be the far more impressive turn). (Rating: ★★★)

B.H.