Snow on the bluff movie trailer
He peoples his cast with great actors ( Helen Mirren, Vanessa Redgrave, Tom Noonan, Michael O'Keefe, Mickey Rourke, Lois Smith, Sam Shepard, Del Toro, Stanton, Clarkson, Eckhart). Sean Penn shows himself in this film as a sure-handed director with great empathy for performance. He never informs Lori of the murder case, but uses his background as a cop to explain his deep concern for the girl's safety. Jerry, who never had a child, reveals himself as a good father, reading bedtime stories, keeping a cautious eye on the girl. We fall into the routine of the new household that has been formed. We fall into the rhythms of life in rural Nevada, outside Reno. Indeed, his film is so intimately involved with the daily details of life that there's a good stretch when we aren't really focusing in those terms.
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Is Jerry going to use the little girl as bait? Is one child to be put at risk in his determination to avenge another one? Sean Penn never underlines this. We are afraid to draw an obvious conclusion. She and her young daughter can live with him. At a local tavern, he becomes friendly with Lori, the barmaid ( Robin Wright Penn), and when she turns up battered one day, he takes her in. He grows intense every time a black car pulls in. From a friend of the murdered girl, he obtained a drawing of a man she has met, a "giant," who gave her "porcupines" and drove a big black car. If the three crimes were committed by the same man, that man must pass here.
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He walks in and makes the owner ( Harry Dean Stanton), an offer too good to refuse. At a crossroads he finds a small country store and gas station with an apartment upstairs. After leaving the force he uses a map to triangulate three crime scenes where, over a period of years, young girls, all of them wearing red, have been killed. We see a lonely man, aging, whose attempts to go through the motions of retirement fail. Here are none of the familiar signals of his more popular performances, none of the relish of characterization, none of the sardonic remove. "The Pledge" may be Nicholson's finest performance. And then, a few seconds later, Toby kills himself and the case seems closed. Jerry is appalled: The Indian clearly has no idea what he is saying. He coaxes and coos in Toby's ear, seducing a confession, and when he gets one he throws up his hands in victory like a football coach. The questions come from Krolak ( Aaron Eckhart), who will take over Jerry's job. He looks through the one-way glass at the interrogation of the prime suspect, a retarded American Indian named Toby (lank-haired Benecio Del Toro). When the girl's mother says, "There can't be such devils out there," look at his eyes as he tells her, "There are such devils." He has been working against them for his entire life, and now he must find this one to save himself. At some point we realize that retirement, for Jerry, is a form of defeat and death. That determination is at the core of "The Pledge," which seems to follow the form of a police procedural and then plunges deeper into the mysteries of innocence, evil, and a man's need to validate himself. What happened to his fishing trip? This is a man who is holding onto his identity with a desperate grip. But he was drawn to the news of the murder, drawn to the crime scene, drawn to be the one who informs the parents, and now he vows to solve the crime.
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Jerry Black is twice-divorced, childless, a career cop who now allegedly looks forward to spending the rest of his life fishing. But later, thinking back to it, perhaps we sense a deeper level.
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The mother ( Patricia Clarkson) holds up a crucifix made by her daughter, and asks for his solemn pledge. Later, inside their house, he reassures them the killer will be found. Penn holds his camera at a distance as Jerry breaks the news to the parents, whose anguish is apparent. We see him slowly approach them across a floor covered with agitated turkey chicks. Jerry is angered at the poor preservation of the crime scene, and at the general reluctance of the cops to notify the girl's parents.