The Pledge strives to be The Vanishing, but fails. The film lost me when Benicio del Toro plays a large Indian–their phrasing, not mine (Cuckoo’s Nest shout out NOT appreciated since the novel takes place in Germany), & moans like an ape. Native Americans are calling–they want their dignity back. Also if you want a revered detective to slowly descend into obsession then madness, perhaps don’t cast Nicholson because that’s a short trip. Cast someone like Jerry Orbach so the audience will be shocked at the sudden challenge of their assumptions. Sean Penn is the director so is he messing with the audience by casting his wife, Robin Wright Penn as the battered wife or that clueless (Madonna side eye). I’m also tired of him making the same movie–see The Crossing Guard–because it takes a serious theme like the effect of a brutal crime of a child & turns it into an acting exercise that *gasp* manly men can feel pain & grief. Also he must have called every one of his contacts because there are so many famous actors in this film that appear for a few moments: Mickey Rourke before he became the hulk, Vanessa Redgrave, Aaron Eckart as a cocky young detective (duh), Helen Mirren as a doctor who questions Jack Nicholson about his sex life because she’s Helen Mirren & a psychologist & the enormous guy who played the killer in Manhunter. By the end of the film, you may not know who the killer was & that would be fine in another director’s hands. This movie needed a light yet meditative touch with no names instead of a plodding, deliberate director obsessed with big names.