In Theaters/On VOD: THE PROFESSOR AND THE MADMAN (2019)

THE PROFESSOR AND THE MADMAN
(Ireland/France/Iceland - 2019)

Directed by P.B. Shemran (Farhad Safinia). Written by Todd Komarnicki and P.B. Shemran (Farhad Safinia). Cast: Mel Gibson, Sean Penn, Natalie Dormer, Steve Coogan, Stephen Dillane, Ioan Gruffudd, Eddie Marsan, Jennifer Ehle, Jeremy Irvine, David O'Hara, Anthony Andrews, Laurence Fox, Lars Brygmann, Bryan Murray, Sean Duggan, Olivia McKevitt, Brendan Patricks, Shane Noone. (Unrated, 124 mins)

A longtime dream project that Mel Gibson's had on the backburner since purchasing the movie rights to Simon Winchester's book when it was released in 1998, THE PROFESSOR AND THE MADMAN ultimately became a nightmare of behind-the-scenes clashes and multiple lawsuits. Gibson began developing it as far back as 2001, when the great John Boorman (DELIVERANCE, EXCALIBUR) was set to write and direct. That fell apart and Boorman's script was reworked in 2007 by Todd Komarnicki (SULLY), with Luc Besson attached to direct, but that was right around the time that Gibson's traffic stop and other offscreen problems essentially made him persona non grata in Hollywood for at least the next decade. Nine years later, with numerous international financiers, Gibson finally got THE PROFESSOR AND THE MADMAN going with a new script by his friend and APOCALYPTO collaborator Farhad Safinia, who would also be making his directing debut. It was near the end of filming in Ireland in 2016 that disagreements began to develop between Gibson/Safinia and Voltage Pictures head Nicolas Chartier, when the pair asked for an additional $2.5 million for five additional days to shoot some scenes that they insisted had to be done on location at Oxford University (Trinity College was filling in for Oxford until then). Chartier rejected the request, telling them that they were already behind schedule and over the $25 million budget, so Trinity in Dublin would have to suffice.

Believing the film wouldn't be complete without these Oxford-shot scenes, Gibson told Chartier that Safinia wasn't being permitted to sufficiently finish the film. Gibson sued Voltage Pictures for breach of contract, claiming the film wasn't completed and he was guaranteed final cut, with Safinia also suing, claiming copyright infringement, accusing Voltage of never finalizing his contract, thus "his" script (which still contained some of Boorman's and Komarnicki's work) was never officially handed over to them. When Voltage released a statement accusing Gibson and Safinia of trying to "hijack the movie," Safinia sued for defamation. A judge ruled in favor of Voltage all around, and when Safinia's planned 160-minute film was whittled down to 124 minutes with neither Gibson nor Safinia's input, Gibson unsuccessfully tried to prevent it from being screened for potential distributors. These lawsuits kept the film on the shelf over 2017 and 2018 until a settlement was reached in early 2019, with Gibson removing his producer credit and any mention of his Icon Productions company. Safinia also successfully petitioned to have his name removed as director and co-writer, with credit now going to the non-existent "P.B. Shemran." Also absent is any mention of Boorman, still credited as a co-writer in initial press releases, in festival reviews, and on IMDb, but whose name is nowhere to be found on the released film. A troubled production, for sure, but there was a time when a prestige period piece starring Mel Gibson and Sean Penn would've been one of the most anticipated films of its year instead of one that gets a buried on VOD like a state secret by lowly, Redbox-ready Vertical Entertainment, with seemingly everyone involved actively distancing themselves from what sounds less like a battle of artistic differences and more like an alpha-male pissing contest.

With that kind of chaotic backstage melodrama, you'd think THE PROFESSOR AND THE MADMAN would be a folly of category five shitstorm proportions along the lines of LONDON FIELDS, another recent film left unreleased for several years due to endless litigation. It's a handsomely-produced period piece with meticulous production design that's often beautiful to look at and undeniably sincere in its approach, and while this Gibson-disowned version has some all-too-obvious red flags for post-production discord, it has other problems for which Gibson and Safinia should probably be held accountable. An account of the creation of the Oxford English Dictionary, THE PROFESSOR AND THE MADMAN focuses on Prof. James Murray (Gibson), a Scottish autodidact and linguist and self-taught expert in over a dozen languages, who successfully lobbies the powers that be at Oxford to entrust him with the task of compiling every word in the English language and its origin into a comprehensive, epic volume ("We are about to embark on the greatest adventure our language has ever known!" he declares). He estimates it'll take five years, but the project soon becomes too daunting, even with research assistants Henry Bradley (Ioan Gruffudd) and Charles Hall (Jeremy Irvine). It also places a strain on his family, with wife Ada (Jennifer Ehle) dutifully supporting him but truthfully not very enthused about moving their large family to a smaller home as Murray obsesses over his all-consuming project. The OED hits a brick wall, not helped by sneering publisher Philip Lyttleton Gell (Laurence Fox, conveying the erudite pomposity that his dad James and uncle Edward have projected so masterfully throughout their long careers) and supercilious Oxford board member Benjamin Jowett (Anthony Andrews), both of whom deem Murray's self-education dubious and a dishonor to the university ("I wonder if it's time to ease our gentle Scotsman off his little perch," Jowett harumphs).

Realizing it will take much longer than five years to complete the dictionary, Murray comes up with the idea of having a "dictionary by democracy," asking the general public to contribute words and origins, with Murray and his assistants determining the validity of the info provided (a pre-Wikipedia of sorts). Their largest selection of entries comes from an unexpected source: Dr. William Chester Minor (Penn, in his first feature film since 2015's THE GUNMAN), an American expat, paranoid schizophrenic and PTSD-afflicted Civil War vet being held at the Broadmoor Asylum for the Criminally Insane after killing a married father of six that he mistook for a wartime enemy. Minor is also a gifted surgeon and intellectual who earned reading privileges in the asylum after saving the life of an injured guard. He also feels remorse for what he's done and offers his military pension to his victim's widow Eliza (Natalie Dormer), who reluctantly accepts after briefly turning to prostitution to support her children. She begins to visit Minor in the asylum, he teaches her to read, and she slowly comes around to forgiving him after witnessing the extent of his mental illness. Dr. Murray visits and befriends Minor as well, which causes friction with the Oxford board when he insists that a known murderer be lauded as a major OED contributor.

Frequently heavy-handed and filled with barely-concealed allusions to Gibson's own personal quest for redemption, THE PROFESSOR AND THE MADMAN benefits from his solid, committed performance, but almost everything else is miscalculated to varying degrees. As in Komarnicki's script for SULLY, the film needs a villain where there really isn't one, so Gell and Jowett are there to undermine Murray and stonewall the OED at every turn for no legitimate reason at all aside from manufactured drama. Likewise at the asylum, the kindly and benevolent Dr. Richard Brayne (Stephen Dillane) suddenly does everything short of twirl a mustache while maniacally cackling to make Minor's life a living hell, starting with cutting off visits from Murray and Eliza and eventually barbaric forms of "therapy" like violently-induced vomiting that he blames on "catalepsy." Maybe some of this was explained in the excised 40-odd minutes of footage, but as presented here, Minor's deteriorating condition (starting with a self-castration) lacks a proper buildup. Not helping matters is a wildly overacting Penn, who's been given carte blanche to gorge on a buffet of scenery by Safinia and Gibson, who also seriously bungle the time element. There is one major instance where the blame can obviously be laid on some sloppy editing in post, as evidenced when Eliza's daughter slaps a white-bearded Minor, who's next seen in his room shouting "Look what you've done!" and his beard is suddenly dark brown, making it almost certain that the scene doesn't belong where Voltage's editors have placed it. But elsewhere, it becomes a huge distraction when Penn's Minor seems to be the only person who ages over the course of the film, set from 1872 to 1910. With a big, bushy salt-and-pepper beard, Gibson looks exactly the same from start to finish, as does everyone else and, save for the final shot at a Murray family gathering, neither Murray's nor Eliza's kids ever grow up as the story progresses and the decades pass. There's also some extensive Minor voiceover in letters he sends to Murray and it's clearly not Penn's voice reciting it. These goofs and haphazard stitches aside, what's here is a compelling story. Penn seems to keep himself in check in his initial scenes with Gibson (who is really good here), and the film also offers nice supporting turns from Eddie Marsan as a sympathetic asylum guard and Steve Coogan as Murray's biggest supporter on the Oxford board. But this is a compromised work that represents the vision of an executive producer doing damage control, and not that of the producer-star who spent a decade-and-a-half trying to get it made and was perhaps too close to it for his--and the film's--own good.

On DVD/Blu-ray: THE LAST FACE (2017) and SECURITY (2017)

THE LAST FACE
(US - 2017)

"Turgid" and "overwrought" don't begin to describe this oppressive, self-indulgent fiasco from director Sean Penn. Filmed in 2014 and laughed off the screen when it was in competition at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival, THE LAST FACE was shelved for another year before getting an unceremonious premiere on DirecTV and then expanding to VOD the same weekend that star Charlize Theron's ATOMIC BLONDE opened. A heavy-handed "message" film that makes you appreciate the comparative subtlety of Steven Seagal's climactic lecture in the 1994 eco-actioner ON DEADLY GROUND, THE LAST FACE tries to address the atrocities in war-torn areas of the world like Liberia, South Sudan, and Sierra Leone, but quickly relegates those concerns to the background to center on the torrid on-again/off-again romance between activist/doctor Wren Peterson (Theron) and Spanish playboy surgeon Miguel Leon (Javier Bardem). Dedicated to helping refugees through an aid organization set up by her late father--from whose shadow she can't seem to escape even though no one's trying to keep her there--Wren insists she doesn't need a man to complete her, then can't stop delivering anguished, Terrence Malick-inspired narration like "Before I met him, I was an idea I had." Wren's and Miguel's relationship has its ups and downs, as evidenced by three separate scenes of Wren yelling "You don't even know me!" and one where she even adds "Being inside me isn't knowing me!" Penn presents their initial, hesitant hooking up with all the grace and restraint of a daytime soap, trapping two Oscar-winning actors in the most unplayable roles of their careers. It's hard to give THE LAST FACE a chance when it opens with onscreen text that's an incoherent word salad about "the brutality of corrupted innocence" and how it ties into "the brutality of an impossible love..." (fade to black) "...shared by a man..." (fade to black) "...and a woman." Spicoli, please!

THE LAST FACE began life as a project for Penn's ex-wife Robin Wright. It was written by her close friend Erin Dignam, but when Penn's and Wright's marriage ended, Penn hung on to the script and pressed forward several years later with his then-girlfriend Theron. There's no shortage of camera adoration of Theron throughout, with Penn veering into Tarantino territory with shots of Theron's toes picking up a pencil before Bardem slithers across the floor to kiss her feet. Their relationship is consummated with a "cute" scene of making faces while they brush their teeth, and for some reason, songs by the Red Hot Chili Peppers figure into the plot, with a sweaty sex scene set to "Otherside" and an earlier bit where a helicopter pilot (Penn's son Hopper Jack Penn) can't shut up about the band. There's so much RHCP love here that it wouldn't be a surprise if Flea showed up as a spazzing doctor with a sock on his dick. BLUE IS THE WARMEST COLOR's Adele Exarchopoulos has an underwritten role as Wren's cousin and brief Miguel love interest, and reliable character actors like Jared Harris and Jean Reno disappear into the background as other doctors (Reno's character is named "Dr. Love" but he doesn't have the cure you're thinkin' of). Penn's intent may be earnest, but when he isn't haranguing the audience about how they need to pay more attention to what's going on in the world, he's sidelining what he wants you to focus on by turning the entire film into what looks like the world's most tone-deaf Harlequin romance adaptation. Penn has made some intelligent and challenging films as a director--1991's THE INDIAN RUNNER, 1995's THE CROSSING GUARD, 2001's THE PLEDGE, and 2007's INTO THE WILD--but THE LAST FACE is catastrophic less than a minute in and insufferable for the next 130. (R, 131 mins)



SECURITY
(US - 2017)

A perfunctory, go-through-the-motions clock-punch for everyone involved, SECURITY is an instantly forgettable time-killer that probably would've played better 20-25 years ago as a Joel Silver production with the same two lead actors, someone like Peter Hyams or Renny Harlin directing, and several million additional dollars in the budget. Consider it DIE HARD IN A MALL or ASSAULT ON FOOD COURT 13, or maybe even JOHN CARPENTER'S PAUL BLART: MALL COP, but any way you slice it, the biggest takeaway from SECURITY is how hilariously inept it is at trying to pass off three bizarrely-dressed soundstages at Bulgaria's Nu Boyana Studios as a suburban American shopping mall. There's about five or six storefronts with very little in the way of merchandise, a clothing store called "Luxury Fashion," randomly placed American flags, a stairway that leads to a wall, some plants, and letters on another wall spelling "M A L L," as if shoppers don't know where they are, plus the building used for the exterior looks like an abandoned factory. But even before the action moves to the mall, the Bulgarian ruse is up when a convoy of US Marshals assemble to move a witness to safety and all are in jackets and bulletproof vests reading "U.S.A. Marshals," which looks and sounds exactly like a task left to an Eastern European prop crew with a shaky grasp of English and no one following up on the work they did before the cameras started rolling. SECURITY was produced by Millennium Films, Avi Lerner's Cannon cover band, and they regularly pass off Bulgarian sets and locations as American, and while it's usually only noticeable if you're looking for it, it's rarely been as sloppily-executed as it is here. It's as unconvincing as the Millennium-produced 2009 remake of IT'S ALIVE, shot in Bulgaria but set in New Mexico, with the interiors of the lead character's house looking like the locally-hired carpenters came up with the layout and architectural design by doing a Google image search for Chi-Chi's.

Eddie Deacon (Antonio Banderas) is a former Special Forces captain suffering from PTSD after three deployments to Afghanistan. Separated from his wife and daughter and desperate for employment, he takes a job as an overnight security guard at a dilapidated mall in the outskirts of a city that's fallen prey to economic downturns and meth labs. Immediately after meeting his cocky, dudebro boss Vance (Liam McIntyre of Starz' SPARTACUS series) and his three other co-workers--how can this rundown mall afford five overnight guards seven nights a week?--ten-year-old Jamie (Katherine Mary de la Rocha) is pounding on one of the entrances, begging to be let in. She was the cargo in the "U.S.A. Marshals" transport, set to testify against the high-powered crime organization that employed her informant father before killing him and her mother, murders that she witnessed. The criminals, led by a man who calls himself "Charlie" (Ben Kingsley) but whose name may as well be Hans Gruber, then spend the rest of the night trying to get into the mall to get Jamie, which requires taking out the security crew, now led by the take-charge Eddie, who of course, views protecting Jamie as his shot at redemption and proof that he's capable of taking care of his own daughter. Director Alain Desrochers employs a few clever touches--like Jamie chasing some of Charlie's goons with a remote control car and the security team communicating via pink, toy walkies--but the whole production is just too chintzy-looking for its own good, looking very nearly as cheap as a Bratislava-shot Albert Pyun rapsploitation trilogy. 57-year-old Banderas is still in great shape and could easily handle the transition into the 60-and-over action star field that Liam Neeson has owned for several years, but he looks bored. Kingsley brings a little class just by being Ben Kingsley, but even he can't do much with a one-dimensional villain who, at one point, stands outside a barricaded door and purrs "...and I'll huff...and I'll puff..." In the requisite Alexander Godunov henchman role, Cung Le glowers and grimaces as someone named "Dead Eyes," and you'll also get some bonus shitty CGI explosions courtesy of Lerner's usual Bulgarian clown crew at Worldwide FX. SECURITY is hardly the worst of its type and is a perfectly acceptable way to kill 90 minutes if you're bored and you find it streaming, but any effort you exert to see it would still be more than the production design team put in to make those sets look like an actual, functioning mall. (R, 92 mins)

Retro Review: AT CLOSE RANGE (1986)

AT CLOSE RANGE
(US - 1986)

Despite significant critical acclaim and spawning a huge radio and MTV hit with Madonna's "Live to Tell," AT CLOSE RANGE only made it to 83 screens at its widest release in the spring of 1986. Orion undoubtedly had a hard time figuring out how to sell this extremely dark, bleak, and depressing crime saga to a mainstream audience. Inspired by true events and set in rural Pennsylvania in 1978 (The Rolling Stones' "Miss You" and A Taste of Honey's "Boogie Oogie Oogie" make soundtrack appearances), the film follows delinquent Brad Whitewood, Jr (Sean Penn), who gets reacquainted with his white trash criminal father Brad Sr. (Christopher Walken), and is seduced into his dad's dangerous gang only to realize too late that he's in too deep and that not even bonds of family and blood mean a whole lot to Brad Sr if it gets in the way of his business. Brad Jr's situation is further complicated by his falling in love with farm girl Terri (Mary Stuart Masterson), with Brad Sr determined to stop them from running away together, especially after Brad Jr, his brother Tommy (Chris Penn)--who may or may not be Brad Sr's son--and their buddies (among them Crispin Glover and FRIGHT NIGHT's Stephen Geoffreys), are pinched committing their own half-assed burglary, get bailed out and promptly subpoenaed by the grand jury, with Brad Sr. stopping at absolutely nothing to keep the boys from telling what they know about his activities.

Though the similarities are on the surface, the presence of Glover arguably makes AT CLOSE RANGE a bit of a dry run for the even more hopeless, fucked-at-birth horrors of 1987's RIVER'S EDGE and, at least in terms of its presentation of lost youth and utterly worthless parenting, Larry Clark's Glover-less 2001 film BULLY. Brad Jr and Tommy drink, cause trouble, and deal weed, all out in the open as their mom (Millie Perkins, almost 30 years after THE DIARY OF ANNE FRANK) and grandma (Eileen Ryan, Sean and Chris' mom) look the other way. The only person who attempts to instill some responsibility and discipline in Brad Jr. is his mom's blue-collar, working-man boyfriend (Alan Autry), who promptly gets dumped for his efforts. The opening hour is draggy and a bit meandering, but the more it goes on, the darker and more unsettling it gets, going from downbeat to suffocating as everyone feels the wrath of a housecleaning Brad Sr. Walken is unforgettable in one of his most powerful and surprisingly restrained performances, absolutely terrifying while significantly dialing down his eccentric Walkenisms and using them as sparingly as he ever would. His dead glare as you look in the eyes of a heartless sociopath who has zero hesitation about killing his own son is the stuff of nightmares. Make no mistake, Walken's Brad Sr is one the most chillingly diabolical monsters you've ever seen in this type of film, and that's saying something considering the same calendar year gave us Dennis Hopper's Frank Booth in BLUE VELVET. He's matched by Penn, and their final confrontation is almost overwhelmingly intense, especially in a moment of genuine terror on Walken's face when Penn switched prop guns just before the cameras rolled--Walken was obsessive about checking the safety of prop guns used in his scenes--and stuck an unchecked one right in Walken's face to get the response needed ("Whoa! Don't!"). Penn and Madonna were married at the time (this was also the year of SHANGHAI SURPRISE), and the film's biggest flaw is the incessant instrumental invocation of "Live to Tell," which sounds too 1986 contemporary for the otherwise accurate period setting (it was originally intended for the Craig Sheffer/Virginia Madsen thriller FIRE WITH FIRE but was nixed at the last minute and used here instead). The film was written by Nicholas Kazan (son of the legendary Elia Kazan) and directed by James Foley, who would direct Madonna in the 1987 bomb WHO'S THAT GIRL? before going on to better things with 1990's AFTER DARK, MY SWEET and 1992's GLENGARRY GLEN ROSS. Also with Candy Clark, Tracey Walter, David Strathairn, J.C. Quinn, R.D. Call, and a young Kiefer Sutherland as one of Tommy's buddies. AT CLOSE RANGE isn't mentioned a lot these days, but it stands the test of time as one of the most powerful films of the late '80s, and necessary viewing for Penn and Walken fans. (R, 111 mins)

In Theaters: THE GUNMAN (2015)

THE GUNMAN
(France/Spain/UK/US - 2015)

Directed by Pierre Morel. Written by Don Macpherson, Pete Travis and Sean Penn. Cast: Sean Penn, Javier Bardem, Idris Elba, Ray Winstone, Mark Rylance, Jasmine Trinca, Peter Franzen, Sir Billy Billingham, Ade Oyefaso, Rachel Lascar, Sarah Moyle. (R, 115 mins)

Very loosely based on Jean-Patrick Manchette's 1981 novel The Prone Gunman, THE GUNMAN would appear, on the surface, to be 54-year-old Sean Penn's blatant attempt to get a head start hitching a ride on the post-TAKEN, Liam Neeson "aging action star" bandwagon. It even goes so far as to have TAKEN director and former Luc Besson protege Pierre Morel at the helm. Penn doing a straight-up action genre piece is a change of pace for the two-time Oscar-winner, but THE GUNMAN isn't really a TAKEN knockoff. It's more in line with last year's Pierce Brosnan actioner THE NOVEMBER MAN--a gritty, serious action thriller with a certain 1970s throwback feel to it. And with its globe-trotting locales and its protagonist being a hunted man, with filming taking place in London, Barcelona, Gibraltar, and Cape Town, it has more in common with the BOURNE movies than TAKEN. Co-producer Penn obviously had a significant hand in the somewhat disjointed script, sharing credit with journeyman script doctor Don Macpherson (his first big-screen writing credit since 1998's disastrous THE AVENGERS) and DREDD director Pete Travis, and it's pretty clear what the other guys wrote and what Penn contributed. Some have called THE GUNMAN a vanity project with Penn showing off his newly-ripped physique and shoehorning his humanitarian concerns into the story, but he mostly keeps the self-indulgence in check, at least until a whimper of an ending that's somewhat reminiscent--though not nearly as egregiously cumbersome--as Steven Seagal's environmental lecture and slide show presentation at the end of ON DEADLY GROUND. But until then, THE GUNMAN is mostly solid and diverting, similar in many ways to a 1970s conspiracy thriller with a vivid European vibe. The action scenes are coherently staged, the violence is brutal and often shocking, and a game cast of overqualified actors shine in well-written character parts, giving substance to what's essentially upscale DTV fare. THE GUNMAN is by no means a great movie, and perhaps Penn was given too much leeway to tailor it to himself, but it's nowhere near the catastrophe that the reviews and the opening weekend box office would indicate.

THE GUNMAN opens in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2006, where Jim Terrier (Penn) is among the contractors working security for an NGO humanitarian effort to provide medical aid and construct an airstrip. Terrier's doctor girlfriend Annie (Jasmine Trinca) is part of the effort, but she doesn't know about the side job that Terrier and his mercenary buddies Cox (Mark Rylance) and Felix (Javier Bardem) have: to coordinate the assassination of the Congo's Minister of Mining at the behest of a multinational corporation that looks to face obstacles and lose profits if he remains in his present position. Terrier ends up being the triggerman, and flees to Europe after the job is done. Eight years later, he's back in the Congo, out of the assassination game and devoting himself full-time to aid work when three killers show up on a job site to take him out. Terrier's instinctive kill skills take over and he survives the attempt on his life and heads to London to warn Cox, now an executive with the very company that once hired them as killers, that he may be next. Terrier makes his way to Barcelona to meet up with Felix, who's now married to Annie. As Terrier and Annie's passion reignites, the attempts on his life continue, and it doesn't take long for him to realize that one of his old cohorts--Felix, Cox, or perhaps even his gregarious buddy Stanley (Ray Winstone), may be the party trying to orchestrate his murder.

Because of Morel's involvement and Penn's age, comparisons to TAKEN are inevitable, but those are surface, coincidental parallels. Penn has designed a star action vehicle to, in part, soapbox his own concerns--not always successfully, mind you--but he doesn't overplay it and turn it into a public service announcement with an overabundance of blood squibs. The action sequences are well-choreographed, the violence and bloodshed convincingly nasty, and Penn's performance, criticized by many as glum and self-serious, suits the story and the surroundings, especially in the way he's suffering from brain trauma and is bogged down by migraines and vomiting spells after some especially hard-hitting showdowns. This is not a wisecracking hero he's playing--he's a damaged guy with regrets who's starting to feel his age. Penn gets some sturdy support from the always-welcome Winstone and Bardem, and Tony-winning Shakespearean stage great Rylance (ANGELS AND INSECTS, INTIMACY) makes a rare appearance in a commercial genre film, and judging from his enjoyably hammy performance, seems to have taken the opportunity to reinvent himself as Richard Harris. Idris Elba turns up 80 minutes in for a glorified cameo as an Interpol agent who tells a drawn-out story with a treehouse metaphor. THE GUNMAN starts stumbling and bumbling on its way to a happy ending and it's probably a film best suited for a low-risk stream on Netflix. Nevertheless, Penn proves he does have potential for a Neeson-style action rebirth if he can maybe just lighten up a little and leave the issues and the statement-making out of it and just let a good action movie be a good action movie.

On DVD/Blu-ray: THIS MUST BE THE PLACE (2012) and STORAGE 24 (2013)

THIS MUST BE THE PLACE
(Italy/France/Ireland - 2011; 2012 US release)

The Weinstein Company acquired this eccentric, glacially slow-moving road film from IL DIVO director Paolo Sorrentino and sat on it for over a year before sneaking it onto 15 screens in the US last fall.  It's certain to attain at least some minor cult status thanks to Sean Penn in perhaps the strangest role of his career as a reclusive, aging, Robert Smith-lookalike goth rocker named Cheyenne.  Living in Dublin with his firefighter wife Jane (Frances McDormand), Cheyenne, who still dresses the part despite having not performed or recorded in 20 years, is forced to travel home to America upon hearing that his estranged father has died.  Once back in NYC, Cheyenne is reminded of his Jewish heritage and learns from aging, foul-mouthed Nazi hunter Mordecai Midler (Judd Hirsch) that his father (whose letters are read in voiceover by an uncredited Fritz Weaver) devoted his life to tracking down a Nazi officer who tortured him at Auschwitz and is now living somewhere in the US.  Cheyenne, haunted by his own demons--he quit writing "depressed songs for depressed kids" and withdrew from public life when two teenaged Irish fans committed suicide after listening to his music--and permitted by his wealth and celebrity to remain a child in many ways, believes he's finally found his true purpose when he decides to finish his father's work and locate the Nazi war criminal.

Sorrentino's film functions as an homage to road films past, particularly the work of Wim Wenders, a point driven home by the presence of PARIS, TEXAS star Harry Dean Stanton as a chatty old-timer who claims to have invented the wheeled suitcase.  Cheyenne becomes quite the detective on his quest down the back roads of America, awkwardly meeting a retired teacher (Joyce Van Patten) who was once married to the alleged Nazi, which leads him to the man's granddaughter (Kerry Condon), a widowed waitress with a young son.  Filming in Dublin, NYC, New Mexico, Utah, and Michigan, Sorrentino does a nice job of capturing the peculiar sounds and rhythms of rural America, and commendably doesn't go for cheap, fish-out-of-water laughs, with the mumbling, vaguely effeminate Cheyenne often finding accepting, kindred spirits among these misfit souls who live off the beaten path.  This is an enigmatic and sometimes frustrating film that leaves several vital pieces of the puzzle open to interpretation, particularly Cheyenne's friendship with Mary (Eve Hewson, daughter of U2's Bono), a Dublin teenager with a delusional mother who hasn't been right since Mary's brother mysteriously vanished, but if you give it chance, it has its rewards, especially with some frequently arresting visuals and Penn's performance, while initially affected, off-putting, and feeling a bit like a stunt, gradually finds its place after a scene where he dumps all of his emotional baggage on old friend David Byrne (playing himself), whose Talking Heads song gives the film its title.  The US theatrical cut was shortened by seven minutes from Sorrentino's original version, completely removing Shea Whigham's appearance as a fast-talking businessman and the explanation of how Cheyenne is suddenly driving a pickup truck on his journey (Whigham apparently asked him to drive it cross-country for him).  THIS MUST BE THE PLACE isn't an easy film to like and anyone who assumes from a cursory glance that it'll be a Cure-inspired goth-rock CRAZY HEART will bail in record time, but road flick nerds and Penn completists will certainly want to give it a look. (R, 111 mins)


STORAGE 24
(India/UK - 2012; 2013 US release)

Uninspired at best and dreadful at worst, STORAGE 24 feels clumsily torn between being a horror movie and a Noel Clarke vanity project.  British TV star Clarke, who wrote and co-directed the moderately entertaining Tarantino/Guy Ritchie knockoff 4.3.2.1, is still trying to mount some kind of Simon Pegg/Edgar Wright breakthrough in the US market, with little success thus far.  Clarke co-produced, co-wrote, and stars in STORAGE 24, which starts its cribbing with a set-up straight out of SUPER 8 as a military cargo plane crashes near Hyde Park in central London.  As the military closes in, the area is locked down and a group of people in a 24-hour storage facility (very) slowly discover that they've got company in the form of a rampaging alien that looks an awful lot like PREDATOR minus the rasta braids.  But before any of that, director Johannes Roberts overindulges Clarke, who seems like he wanted to write a boring breakup drama intermittently interrupted by gory alien kills.  Far too much time is spent on Charlie (Clarke) bellyaching to his best buddy Mark (Colin O'Donoghue) about getting dumped by Shelley (Antonia Campbell-Hughes), who's also at the storage facility and, it turns out, has been secretly seeing Mark for months.  Even when the alien starts offing people one-by-one and the film just starts to blatantly copy other, better movies (mostly ALIEN and ALIENS, but also PREDATOR, DISTRICT 9, and ATTACK THE BLOCK just to name a few), with the alien dragging people up through the ceiling tiles, people crawling through air shafts, John Carpenter-esque score, etc. without any sense of style, fun, humor or homage, Charlie is still fixating on why things didn't work out.  Ploddingly-paced with a dull cast and shoddy CGI gore effects, STORAGE 24 accomplishes nothing other than reminding you of past films that you'd be better off rewatching instead.  (R, 87 mins)

In Theaters: GANGSTER SQUAD (2013)

GANGSTER SQUAD
(US - 2013)

Directed by Ruben Fleischer.  Written by Will Beall.  Cast: Josh Brolin, Ryan Gosling, Sean Penn, Nick Nolte, Emma Stone, Anthony Mackie, Robert Patrick, Giovanni Ribisi, Michael Pena, Mireille Enos, Sullivan Stapleton, Holt McCallany, Troy Garity, Jon Polito, Jack McGee, John Aylward, Josh Pence. (R, 111 mins)

Delayed by several months for reshoots after removing a sequence involving a shootout in a movie theater out of respect for the victims of the Aurora, CO shootings at a midnight showing of THE DARK KNIGHT RISES last summer, GANGSTER SQUAD finds itself in the big-studio dumping ground of early January.  Adapted from Paul Lieberman's non-fiction chronicle of covert cops taking on the mob in post-war L.A., the film, written by Will Beale (CASTLE), and directed by Ruben Fleischer (ZOMBIELAND), is sufficiently entertaining in a brainless kind of way, but it feels lacking, like it could've--and should've--been more.  Fleischer, with two comedies to his credit (he also made 10 MINUTES OR LESS), might not have been the best choice to direct, as the film has a sometimes awkward time straddling the line between serious and camp and never coming down on either side.  It threatens to become a spoof on several occasions, and not all of the actors seem to be on the same page with what the project should be.

When ruthless east-coast mobster Mickey Cohen (Sean Penn, whose fake nose is currently the frontrunner for 2014's Best Supporting Actor Oscar) takes over the L.A. crime scene with a good chunk of the cops and judges in his pocket, frustrated police chief Parker (a grumblier-than-usual Nick Nolte) talks honest but hot-headed detective and war hero John O'Mara (Josh Brolin) into organizing a secret, off-the-books team of elite cops to take down Cohen's empire by any means necessary.  Still shattered by his experiences in WWII, O'Mara is now only at home in combat-type situations, which immediately brands him an outsider with the powers that be at the L.A.P.D.  Likewise, he assembles, with the help of his devoted and pregnant wife Connie (Mireille Enos of TV's THE KILLING), a ragtag team of misfit cops for whom the rules are optional:  reckless ladies' man Jerry Wooters (Ryan Gosling), knife-throwing beat cop Coleman Harris (Anthony Mackie), wily old cowboy Max Kennard (Robert Patrick), methodical surveillance man Conway Keeler (a surprisingly calm Giovanni Ribisi), and eager Navidad Ramirez (Michael Pena), who joins essentially because Kennard vouches for him and no one else wants to be partnered with him because of his ethnicity.

GANGSTER SQUAD is never dull and, from the standpoint of its production design, looks terrific.  The problem is that the film's tone is just all over the place, both in terms of script and style. Several action sequences, particularly a car chase, are dampened by the modern--and entirely too ubiquitous--reliance on blur-inducing shaky-cam and too much CGI (the explosions in this film are embarrassing).  Performance-wise, Brolin plays it completely straight and is very good as the driven, obsessed O'Mara, but Gosling never seems comfortable in this period setting, and his glib, flippant character doesn't seem like a 1949 type.  The other members of the Gangster Squad don't really get much room to shine but Patrick seems to enjoy playing a grizzled, big-moustachioed old-school lawman who never really blended in with the fancy ways of the big city.  The show-stealer, however, is a completely over-the-top, borderline grotesque Penn, who plays Cohen as a foaming-at-the-mouth madman who's introduced having an underling's hands and feet tied to the bumpers of two cars facing opposite directions and subsequently ripped in half.  Penn is one of cinema's great actors, but he's rarely cut loose and hammed it up to this degree (even his Spicoli from FAST TIMES AT RIDGEMONT HIGH wasn't played this broadly).  Penn has clearly been instructed to turn it up to 11 and play to the back rows, and he's obviously having a blast.  But therein lies the conundrum of GANGSTER SQUAD:  Penn is entertaining as hell here, but his performance is so much that he's more funny than threatening.  The three leads don't seem to be acting in the same movie:  Brolin acts like he's in the next L.A. CONFIDENTIAL, Penn acts like he's in a live-action Looney Tunes, and Gosling acts like he's arriving fashionably late for a gangster-themed GQ spread.  And poor Emma Stone, charming as usual, is stuck with a woefully underwritten character as Grace, Cohen's reluctant moll who, naturally, falls for Jerry, which also reunites the two actors from 2011's CRAZY STUPID LOVE.

GANGSTER SQUAD borrows elements from several better films, from the underrated MULHOLLAND FALLS (1996) to the great L.A. CONFIDENTIAL (1997), but most of all, it seems especially indebted to Brian De Palma's THE UNTOUCHABLES (1987), in its premise, some vaguely Morricone-esque music cues, the chief villain having an ominously creepy right-hand man (Troy Garity's one-eyed Wrevock is a bland stand-in for Billy Drago's Frank Nitti), and a finale that shares a few visual elements (minus a runaway stroller), like a long set of steps.  There's a great story to be told here but, in the hands of Fleischer, it struggles to find a consistent tone and feels at times like it's an adaptation of a lighthearted graphic novel instead of a true crime account as Beale's script leaves no cliche unused (approximately how many badges do you suppose are at the bottoms of lakes, rivers, and other bodies of water, hurled in disgust by disillusioned cops fed up with the criminal-coddling system?).  By no means is GANGSTER SQUAD a bad film and it's very often an entertaining one.  But it's also an uneven and sometimes frustratingly empty one that seems content to cruise by, squandering its potential to sit alongside the films it's so openly emulating.

Summer of 1982: FRIDAY THE 13TH PART III, FAST TIMES AT RIDGEMONT HIGH, and PINK FLOYD THE WALL (August 13, 1982)

Much to the chagrin of concerned parents' groups and a scaremongering media, slasher films were big business in the early 1980s, especially calendar-related slasher films.  John Carpenter's HALLOWEEN (1978) is usually credited with creating the holiday slasher subgenre, and while it certainly kickstarted its wild popularity and was instrumental in establishing the formula, it was Bob Clark's terrifying BLACK CHRISTMAS (1974) that did it first.  HALLOWEEN exploded, becoming (at the time) the highest-grossing indie film ever, and it led to such titles as TO ALL A GOOD NIGHT, CHRISTMAS EVIL, NEW YEAR'S EVIL, and PROM NIGHT from 1980, GRADUATION DAY, HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME, and MY BLOODY VALENTINE from 1981. 1984 brought the controversial SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT, and even as late as 1986, there were two movies--one American and one British--called APRIL FOOL'S DAY, though the British film was retitled SLAUGHTER HIGH for the US. 

None of these post-HALLOWEEN holiday/calendar offshoots were as popular as the FRIDAY THE 13TH series, which even inspired its own series of imitative "horny teenagers being killed in the woods/at camp" subgenre.  Dismissed and practically burned at the stake by critics, Sean S. Cunningham's FRIDAY THE 13TH, is an expertly-constructed, archetypal slasher film--aided significantly by the terrifying "ki ki ki, ma ma ma" Harry Manfredini's score--that only seems tame today because it's been imitated so much.  The success of FRIDAY THE 13TH, and the idea of the killer's actions being some sort of payback for the transgressions of past or present camp counselors, immediately led to THE BURNING (1981), MADMAN (1982), and SLEEPAWAY CAMP (1983), which itself had numerous sequels.   But even the "dead kids in the woods" angle had somewhat of a precedent with Mario Bava's 1972 Italian horror film BAY OF BLOOD, which existed under a ton of alternate titles (TWITCH OF THE DEATH NERVE, and the misleading LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT PART II among them).  FRIDAY THE 13TH PART 2's famous scene of two lovers being impaled simultaneously during sex is an idea lifted completely from BAY OF BLOOD.  The first two FRIDAY THE 13TH films did huge business and became a near-annual tradition for the rest of the 1980s.  The hockey-masked killer Jason is right alongside HALLOWEEN's Michael Myers in terms of slasher horror iconography.  Jason wasn't even the killer in the first FRIDAY film:  he's only mentioned as the drowned son of Mrs. Voorhees (Betsy Palmer), revealed to be the killer, who's seeking revenge on past camp counselors who were fooling around and not paying attention while he cried for help, struggling to stay above the waters of Crystal Lake.  Jason only appears in a dream scene at the end, but takes center stage as the suddenly very much alive killer in FRIDAY THE 13TH PART 2, seeking revenge for the killing of his mother.  It was Jason who would become the focal point of the franchise from then on (except for 1985's FRIDAY THE 13TH: A NEW BEGINNING, which has a killer dressed as Jason), though starting with 1986's witty, self-mocking FRIDAY THE 13TH PART VI: JASON LIVES, the series would abandon any illusion of seriousness, resulting in gimmicky fare like 1988's FRIDAY THE 13TH PART VIII: JASON TAKES MANHATTAN, and culminating in 2002's JASON X, which finds the killer awakening from a cryogenic sleep in outer space in the year 2455.   By this time, the rights to the character had drifted from Paramount to New Line, who owned A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET, and 2003 saw the release of FREDDY VS. JASON, the last in the original series, which was rebooted in 2009 with FRIDAY THE 13TH to middling interest and thus far, appears to be stalled.



Jason's FRIDAY THE 13TH PART 2 "sackhead" look, very reminiscent
of the killer in the 1977 cult classic THE TOWN THAT DREADED SUNDOWN

The iconic hockey mask look that started with FRIDAY THE 13TH PART III

FRIDAY THE 13TH PART III, which became the second film of the summer to knock E.T.: THE EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL out of the top spot at the box office, is also an important film for the franchise in that it's the first time Jason (played here by Richard Brooker) wears his trademark hockey mask. He had the one-eyed "sackhead" look in PART 2, and he acquires the hockey mask after killing the hapless, buffoonish Shelley (Larry Zerner), who was wearing it at the time.  Jason sports the mask for the rest of the film, and the look stuck in subsequent sequels.  His first appearance with the hockey mask occurs exactly one hour into PART III and it's one of the series' best moments.

FRIDAY THE 13TH PART III also worked in another short-lived early '80s craze: the return of 3-D, which hadn't been widely used since its initial 1953-1954 explosion. Numerous 3-D films were made from 1981-83 before the trend flamed out again: COMIN' AT YA (1981), PARASITE (1982) and several from 1983: TREASURE OF THE FOUR CROWNS, SPACEHUNTER: ADVENTURES IN THE FORBIDDEN ZONE, METALSTORM: THE DESTRUCTION OF JARED-SYN, AMITYVILLE 3-D, and JAWS 3-D.

Also, from a point of personal interest from growing up in Toledo, OH, one of the film's co-stars, Ann Arbor, MI-native Tracie Savage, quit acting after this film to pursue a career in journalism.  While watching PART 3 on cable a year or so after seeing in theaters, I recognized her as a reporter for Toledo's then-NBC affiliate WTVG.  At the time, being 10 or 11, I couldn't figure out how she managed to go from FRIDAY THE 13TH PART III to being a reporter in my hometown, and that was coupled with the strange feeling of having a seen a well-known local news reporter naked in a horror movie. She was on Los Angeles TV for several years and now handles news radio in the L.A. area, and was even called to the stand to testify during the O.J. Simpson trial in 1995.

Tracie Savage, soon to leave acting for a career in TV news.

FAST TIMES AT RIDGEMONT HIGH was based on a book by Rolling Stone writer Cameron Crowe, who went undercover as a student and chronicled his experiences.  Crowe also scripted the film, which featured a large ensemble cast of future stars, including Jennifer Jason Leigh, Judge Reinhold, Phoebe Cates, Forest Whitaker, Eric Stoltz, Anthony Edwards, and Nicolas Cage (in his first film, and billed as Nicolas Coppola).  But it was Sean Penn's star-making performance as stoner icon Jeff Spicoli that got all the attention, and deservedly so.  Whether he's having pizza delivered to Mr. Hand's (Ray Walston) history class or wrecking the star football player's car ("My old man is a television repairman!  He's got this ultimate set of tools!  I can fix this!"), Spicoli is one of the great movie characters of the 1980s.  As funny as Penn is, he largely functions as the comic relief in a film that's not as slapsticky as its ad campaign indicated. Also featuring Tom Petty's "American Girl," Jackson Browne's "Somebody's Baby," The Cars' "Moving in Stereo," and the Go-Go's "We Got the Beat," plus several girls "who've cultivated the Pat Benatar look."  1984 saw the release of the disappointing semi-sequel THE WILD LIFE, also written by Crowe, which followed a group of friends over the summer after graduation.  Stoltz returns, but as a different character, and Penn's younger brother Chris stars as the resident party animal of the group, which seems to exist in the same Ridgemont High universe even though no FAST TIMES characters are carried over.  FAST TIMES AT RIDGEMONT HIGH also spawned a short-lived 1986 TV series titled FAST TIMES, with Dean Cameron (Chainsaw from 1987's SUMMER SCHOOL) as Spicoli, but it was cancelled after just seven episodes. 

PINK FLOYD THE WALL opened in limited release this weekend, and would go wide a month later.  Based on the 1979 Pink Floyd album conceived by bassist Roger Waters, THE WALL would become a mainstream success but went on to a long life as a midnight movie.  Working with Waters, who wrote the screenplay, and animator Gerald Scarfe, director Alan Parker brought his unique sense of visual style and his keen ability for melding music and imagery (the Giorgio Moroder-propelled chase in 1978's MIDNIGHT EXPRESS, plus films like 1976's BUGSY MALONE, 1980's FAME, 1991's THE COMMITMENTS, and 1996's EVITA) and helped create a truly nightmarish big-screen vision of Waters' bleak, disturbing magnum opus.  The film opened to generally positive reviews but it was far from smooth sailing getting it to the screen.  Waters planned on starring as Pink, but the role ended up going to Boomtown Rats frontman and future Live Aid organizer Bob Geldof, while Waters and Parker clashed throughout filming.  Despite the behind-the-scenes troubles, the film has aged quite well and as far as cinematic rock operas go, it's arguably the best of its kind, with many haunting, unforgettable images throughout.

Also opening on this busy Friday was the very Reagan-era political action thriller THE SOLDIER, directed by James Glickenhaus, who had a huge sleeper hit with 1980's vigilante cult classic THE EXTERMINATOR.  Ken Wahl (later of TV's WISEGUY) stars as a US government operative who tangles with an evil KGB agent (Klaus Kinski!) while dealing with a Soviet plot to detonate nukes in a Saudi oil field and contaminate the world's oil supply unless the US President (William Prince) starts a war with Israel.  Glickenhaus, who left filmmaking years ago and became a major NYC investment broker and race car collector, was a tremendously underrated action craftsman with films like this, THE EXTERMINATOR, and 1988's SHAKEDOWN.  He doesn't run from his B-movie past however, contributing audio commentaries to Synapse Films' recent Blu-ray release of THE EXTERMINATOR and their planned release of his 1991 Christopher Walken actioner MCBAIN.  THE SOLDIER is probably best known for its memorable ski chase.  And yes, that music is Tangerine Dream.

Lastly, this weekend also saw the re-release of STAR WARS, accompanied by a brief teaser for the next summer's final installment of the trilogy, then titled REVENGE OF THE JEDI before George Lucas changed it to RETURN OF THE JEDI. 

TOP TEN FILMS FOR THE WEEKEND OF AUGUST 13, 1982 (from www.boxofficemojo.com)

1.    FRIDAY THE 13TH PART III

2.    E.T.: THE EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL

3.    AN OFFICER AND A GENTLEMAN

4.    THE BEST LITTLE WHOREHOUSE IN TEXAS

5.    STAR WARS (re-issue)

6.    THINGS ARE TOUGH ALL OVER

7.    FAST TIMES AT RIDGEMONT HIGH

8.    THE WORLD ACCORDING TO GARP

9.    NIGHT SHIFT

10.  ROCKY III

Cult Classics Revisited: THE PLEDGE (2001)

THE PLEDGE
(US, 2001)

Directed by Sean Penn.  Written by Jerzy Kromilowski and Mary Olson-Kromilowski.  Cast: Jack Nicholson, Robin Wright Penn, Aaron Eckhart, Benicio del Toro, Sam Shepard, Helen Mirren, Vanessa Redgrave, Patricia Clarkson, Michael O'Keefe, Mickey Rourke, Harry Dean Stanton, Tom Noonan, Costas Mandylor, Pauline Roberts, Dale Dickey, Lois Smith. (R, 124 mins)

I saw THE PLEDGE when it opened in theaters in January 2001, and as it progressed, it started to feel very familiar.  I kept thinking I'd just seen numerous elements of the plot in some straight-to-VHS European film a few years prior.  And it turns out I did.  The 1996 English-language Dutch film THE COLD LIGHT OF DAY (starring Richard E. Grant) was an adaptation of the same 1958 novel Das Versprechen, by Swiss mystery writer Friedrich Durrenmatt.  Durrenmatt wrote the script for the German thriller ES GESCHAH AM HELLICHTEN TAG (IT HAPPENED IN BROAD DAYLIGHT) and expanded that script into the novel.  It was remade for German TV in 1997 and also turned into a 1979 Italian thriller titled LA PROMESSA. 

THE PLEDGE, the third film directed by Sean Penn, is the first American take on the Durrenmatt source novel and it's more of a psychological character study than the suspense thriller that the trailer and TV spots were selling.  That doesn't mean there aren't some tense moments throughout, but people expecting a fast-paced nailbiter were probably disappointed and the film didn't do well at all.  It's managed to find a following over the last decade, largely through still-frequent cable airings and also because it always seems to turn up in articles about "Great Movies You've Never Heard Of," or on lists of Jack Nicholson's most underrated films that always seem to make the rounds on his birthday.  This is right up there with the following year's ABOUT SCHMIDT as a great late-career Nicholson performance.  Nicholson hasn't acted regularly since the mid-1990s, and THE PLEDGE was his first film since his Oscar-winning turn in 1997's AS GOOD AS IT GETS.  While he hasn't gone into retirement, his film appearances over the last decade and a half have been sporadic enough that it's always an event when he's onscreen again.  At this point in his life, Nicholson, now 75, only works when he wants to and as a result, he gives it his all, presumably because he's legitimately enthused about the project. 

Nicholson, starring in his second film for Penn (the first was 1995's powerful, little-seen THE CROSSING GUARD), is retiring Reno detective Jerry Black.  On his last day on the job (which Penn and screenwriters Jerzy Kromilowski and Mary Olson-Kromilowski thankfully don't turn into a cliche), Jerry leaves his retirement party with some other cops when a little girl's body is found in a snow-covered farmland area.  A suspect--Native American Toby Wadenah (Benicio del Toro)--is quickly rounded up and interrogated by Jerry's cocky replacement Stan Krolak (Aaron Eckhart), who doesn't seem to care that Toby, who has a rape conviction in his past, is clearly mentally challenged and doesn't comprehend the questions.  Krolak coerces a confession out of Toby, who promptly steals a deputy's gun and commits suicide.  The case is closed by Krolak and Capt. Pollack (Sam Shepard), but Jerry, who pledged to the dead girl's parents (Patricia Clarkson, Michael O'Keefe) that he would find the killer, is unconvinced.

Postponing a fishing trip and conducting his own investigation, Jerry finds possible connections to two other killings/abductions of little girls that took place over the last eight years, based on the most recent victims drawings of a black car, driven by a "giant" she called "The Wizard." Pollack and Krolak dismiss his concerns and think the twice-divorced Jerry is suffering from retirement anxiety and can't let go of the job.  Moving to a small town between the two towns where the past attacks occurred, Jerry buys a gas station and befriends single mom Lori (Robin Wright) and her seven-year-old daughter Chrissy (Pauline Roberts).  It looks like a content retirement for Jerry as Lori and Chrissy move in with him and a familial bond develops.  But at some point, Jerry opts for the unthinkable:  by buying Chrissy clothes similar to the red dresses the victims wore, and by putting her swing set right near the road outside the gas station, he practically advertises her availability to The Wizard.  His obsession has become so overwhelming that he's actually using Chrissy to set a trap.

There's much ambiguity here as Penn and the screenwriters are never clear if that was Jerry's intention all along. Maybe the gas station was a longshot trap, but with Chrissy, he has bait.  We don't know how soon those wheels start turning in Jerry's head after he meets Chrissy.  But it eventually supercedes the (I believe) legitimate feelings he's developed for Lori and Chrissy.  Maybe he can't let go of the job, maybe it's a past unsolved case that still gnaws at him and he sees this as redemption...or maybe he's achieved some kind of spiritual rebirth through the pledge he makes to the dead girl's mother.  That scene is really the only major misstep in THE PLEDGE.  It's presented in such a heavy-handed fashion that it doesn't ring true.  It's not enough to have Jerry haltingly promise to find the killer (on his last day, no less--and you get the sense he's not serious about it), but it's a bit over-the-top when the mother pulls a cross down from the wall and makes him swear on his soul's salvation by a cross that was handmade by the dead girl. Regardless, something snaps in Jerry at that moment and he can't rest until he's seen this through to its inevitably devastating end. 

As larger-than-life as he is offscreen, it's always amazing how adept Nicholson is at disappearing into character parts and not simply coming off as "Jack."  His performance as the tortured, tragic Jerry Black is one of his most subtle and understated.  There's no outbursts, sarcastic comments, arched eyebrows, or wicked grins.  It's a haunting performance in a film that stays with you long after it's over.  Nicholson gets stellar support from a packed supporting cast filled with a lot of Penn pals, most of whom (Helen Mirren, Vanessa Redgrave, Harry Dean Stanton, and Mickey Rourke), only have what amount to cameos.  Rourke has about two minutes of screen time and is absolutely gut-wrenching as the father of a missing girl.

There is no real closure for any characters in THE PLEDGE, a bleak, somber examination of obsession that deserved a better commercial reception than it got, though it's admittedly a tough sell and Warner Bros. probably shouldn't have rolled it out nationwide.  But it further established Penn as a maker of challenging, uncompromising films (after THE CROSSING GUARD and his 1991 directing debut THE INDIAN RUNNER) and showcased Nicholson in one of the top performances of his career, which is really saying something.  It's a powerful, thought-provoking work, and it's very quietly come around to being regarded by many as one of the great unsung films of its decade.