There can't be such devils out there.

The Pledge is directed by Sean Penn and adapted to screenplay by Jerzy Kromolowski and Mary Olson-Kromolowski from Friedrich Dürrenmatt's novel, "The Promise". It stars Jack Nicholson, Robin Wright Penn, Aaron Eckhart, Sam Shepard, Patricia Clarkson, Helen Mirren, Tom Noonan, Benicio Del Toro, Mickey Rourke, Dale Dickey, Vanessa Redgrave and Harry Dean Stanton. Music is by Klaus Badelt and Hans Zimmer, and cinematography by Chris Menges.

Police chief Jerry Black (Nicholson) is literally on his last day before retitement. But during his leaving party news filters through that a young girl has been brutally murdered. Talking his chiefs into letting him tag along to the crime scene, Black ends up breaking the dredful news to the girl's parents. There he pledges to the mother that he will find her daughter's killer.

Dürrenmatt's source material has been mined a few times for other filmic ventures, where the best of the other bunch is "Es geschah am hellichten Tag" ("It Happened in Broad Daylight"). It is here, though, in Sean Penn's hands, that we get the version that got two thumbs up from the author, mostly because of the ending staying true to his work.

It should be noted from the off that this is not police procedural detective piece. This is a slow burn, moody and edgy picture, the kind that Penn excells at as an actor. Thankfully, in spite of it losing money at the box office, it shows Penn the perfect director for such material.

It obviously isn't a film for everyone, more so if not prepared for it being a picture about one man's tumbling emotional descent. As Jerry Black searches for the perpretrator of heinious crimes, he also is faced with a moral judgement call and a major affair of the heart.

The trick of the screnplay here is not in the red herrings and the little dangles of clues that appear to be on offer to Jerry, it's that we are never quite sure if Jerry is actually right in his belief of a child serial killer at work. Is it the product of a man so driven by the pledge he made, that he isn't thinking straight? Or worse losing his grip on sanity? The answer will only will out with the clinically daring finale.

Lead actors Nicholson and Wright Penn turn in some of their finest work, both responding to Sean's probing of troubled souls in search of an exit. There's an array of quality support actors in small parts, which is a testament to the pull that working with Penn did appeal. The musical score is nervy and sits smartly with the ethereal tones that Menges brings via his photographic lenses.

The Pledge is a haunting and disturbing character study that refuses to cop out. It achieves its aims and wasn't going to pander to any crowd pleasing bums on seats tactics. A dark thriller for grown ups who have the patience for such a telling, and perhaps more crucially are prepared to have their emotions tested with the finale. 9/10

Watching the opening credits, I was really impressed by all those well-known names popping up, because I had no idea this movie even existed.. and now I know it's because it isn't that good. _Especially_ compared to the book of the same name by **Friedrich Dürrenmatt**.
Beside the mystery of how they managed to stretch out a 150 page book into a movie that is over 2 hours long (and leaving out the best scene in the book), it also suffered from the modernization and Americanisation.

**Everything that made the book intriguing for me is lost in the movie:**
- The inspector's character study.
- The professional friendship and mutual respect between the police chief and the inspector. The police chief starts to worry about his former inspector, which adds another layer to the inspector's undoing.
- The commentary on police work, vigilantism and crime fiction.

**Additionally some of the changes really irritated me:**
- The mentally disabled Native American (**Benicio del Toro**) as the suspect.
- The fact that he shoots himself, but I guess that's a must in an American adaptation.. in the book he silently hangs himself in his cell, after his forced confession.
- Was that DNA taken from the girl's body ever tested? Or compared to the suspect? Why did they purposely bring it up at the crime scene but never spoke of it again?
- The romantic entanglement between Jerry Black (**Jack Nicholson**) and Lori (**Robin Wright**). Why was that necessary?