Sean-Penn Movie Reviews

this is about Maureen playd by Robin Wright Penn(married to SEan Penn in real life) and her boyfriend Eddie Quinn(Sean Penn) and he goes crazy and he is sent away in a mental institute for ten years, realizing that Maureen divorced him, married Joey(John Travolta) and had 2 kids with him and she also had Penn's daughter Jeannie as well. the story sorta bores until Penn snaps and delivers a honest and true performance as Eddie, and its also boosted up by the snapping John Travolta(man is he good). other cast includes Harry Dean Stanton, Debi Mazar, James Gandolfini, Burt Young, Gena Rowlands and Chloe Webb. a good view and the 2 lead males are perfect, like in your face style.

It took me a couple of viewings before I realised what a good film this is. It's satisfying in so many ways. The theme is love of course, but don't let that put you off. It's the kind of intense soul-mate love, Cassevetes' style. Nick Cassevetes does a nice job & very stylish too. The great thing about this movie is the performances. Sean Penn is outstanding,as usual,& Robin Wright pulls off her best performance as Sean's wife~(deja vu). Travolta is Travolta, which is fine by me & a comfortable role for him for a change.

This movie is absolutly the best movie I have ever seen. It is sad, dramatic and (at times) funny. I am not very old and yet I love Sean Penn. He is the best actor. He is able to get so in-touch with the character you actually forget you are watching him at all. He is by far the greatest actor of all time. The fact that they had Robin Wright Penn act along side of him was brilliant. The two make a great duo and really bring the movie to life. Travolta also does a great job. It really touches the heart. You will laugh, you will cry, you will care. This movie is truly one of the greatest films of all time.

A sumptuously filmed, delightfully old-fashioned, but ultimately rather insubstantial adaptation of W. Somerset Maugham's novella of the same name. Mary Panton (Kristin Scott Thomas) must decide: does she play it safe and marry a stuffy Englishman (James Fox) for position and security, or does she follow her heart and take up with a charming but feckless married American playboy (Sean Penn)? A few days of melodrama involving sex, suicide and the menace of Italian fascism help make up her mind. The performances from Scott Thomas and Penn are solid, with Anne Bancroft, Derek Jacobi and Massimo Ghini delighting in minor roles, though Jeremy Davies is less convincing as an Austrian peasant. It's probably worth seeing just for Maurizio Calvesi's cinematography and Paul Brown's production design - the lavish villa and the ripening tomatoes at the tennis club are a treat. But highest honors surely belong to special make-up artist Joan Giacomin who transforms the talented but rather rough-headed Sean Penn into a veritable '40s matinée idol. Penn continues to shine, in roles like this one, with remarkable versatility.

If there was ever a need for evidence that one great actor/actress cannot carry a mediocre film, "Up in the Villa" satisfies that need. Kristen Scott Thomas is asked to carry nearly the entire load in this film and she does marvelously; however, the story itself is pedestrian and the essence of stereotyping and cliché.

Set in Italy at the threshold of WW II, the film is the consummate exercise in pigeonholing. The Italian police are corrupt, brazen and supercilious; the European petty nobility are arrogant, easy to dislike and appropriately self-consumed; the lone American (Sean Penn) is hopelessly irresponsible, brash, superficial, cocksure and a borderline incompetent; and the innocent refugee (Davies, who is also great) is loveable, poor, misunderstood and eventually suicidal because of his adulation of a woman (Kristen Scott Thomas). The English gentleman is, of course, properly moral, quietly patrician and appropriately self-effacing when required.

Kristen Scott Thomas, Mary in "Up in the Villa," plays the part of widow beset by many urges, ghosts, a spot of rebellion, not to mention some deep-seated personal insecurities. As only she can, KST pulls together all these facets with dialogue, delicate mannerisms and her copyright look - but in the end, even the writer must have been unsure that the story was carried, because, reiterating the boorish plot out-load falls to bare discourse between a now apologetic Mary (KST), and a suddenly (again) haughty Princess. Sean Penn plays the role of the American, but he comes off more as sort of amalgam of Fonzy and a mongrel pound-puppy. The stereotype of the American seems to be aimed at portraying the Euro version of a "strong silent type," but he just comes across as an American looser - which, on second thought, may have been the director's intent all along.

You'd think after devoting a couple of hours to watching this, that the writer would reward the audience with an ending at least worthy of the actors, if not the plot. Regrettably even the ending is weak, so weak in fact that when Mary wanders off with the American, who can tell whether it's good, bad or if it even matters to them or anyone else. It amounts to sort of an "on the train" version of riding off into the sunset -- but just looks like the director finally admits to being bored with the whole affair.

If you're a Kristen Scott Thomas fan, see the film to watch a great actress at the top of her craft, otherwise your time may be better spent on other things.

The cast in this movie is exceptional, and the book is among the author's (W. Somerset Maugham) best, but somehow something got very, very lost in the translation and the movie is merely okay. I don't know why, exactly. It's been said that Maugham is extremely difficult to translate onto the screen, and this movie is Exhibit A. My advice: buy the book and sit back for a great, luxurious read. Skip the movie.

Perhaps I'm simply an uncultured Philistine, but I found this movie to be painfully slow, disjointed, and excessively philosophical. The plot lacked flow: episodes largely failed to join themselves together in time and space and an often-heard comment from me while viewing this was "When the heck is this?" Perhaps this disjunction was an effort to portray the reality of fighting in the Pacific War, as has been mentioned- long periods of agonizing boredom punctuated by brief periods of intense conflict and sheer terror- but if so it failed to come across that way, although I was surely frustrated and bored during most of the movie, and thus some would say the director has achieved his aims. The action scenes, what few there were, were well-done and satisfying and did capture the nature of conflict but were hardly worth watching the entire movie for.

The acting was generally sub-par. Nick Nolte really overplayed his part, coming across as ridiculous and unrealistic; his inner monologue and outward actions were completely disconnected, leaving me to wonder just exactly what his problem was. Most of the rest of the actors failed to impress me with their skills, and I sympathized with a grand total of one character, Ben Chaplin's Bell. He was well-played and I was engaged by the saga of his wife, as I was curious to see how it turned out and since it brought some semblance of plot and interest to the movie.

A great deal of philosophizing and thinking went on before the viewer sees the characters go through anything worth philosophizing about. After they have been through combat, it only gets worse, ascending to new depths of turgid dialogue/monologue about war and ... the horror of it all. I found the manner in which this was done unsatisfying and unrealistic.

I have seen other movies and read many works of history that portray and describe very well what can happen to men in wartime: this film does neither and is a realistic depiction only in the sense that the viewer will soon wish it to be over, as combatants wish a war to be over.

It is my belief that one day film historians will look back at the 1990s and realize that The Thin Red Line, an overall superior work compared to Saving Private Ryan, was done an injustice due to the latter's superior marketing techniques as well as director Steven Spielberg's household name recognition. While Private Ryan did a good job at depicting the horrors of war and the honor of the individual soldier, The Thin Red Line gives us the psychological aspects of war, which is a far more complex and intriguing world then the one presented to us by Spielberg. This film is longer and less "hollywoodized" than Ryan, but it has just as many gripping battle scenes and a star all-male cast that arguably makes the performances in Private Ryan pale by comparison. And while the latter work gave us the titanic, war-torn towns in France, this one gives us a glimpse into the colorful, exotic world of the Asia-Pacific region. To sum things up, this film is a masterpiece for an audience that appreciates war films that are realistic yet also introspective, delving into the the eternal issue of life and the meaning that human beings give to it.

First off, this is NOT, let me write it again, NOT like Saving Private Ryan. The biggest injustice for this movie was that some knuckleheads had the audacity to compare it to Saving Private Ryan. While Ryan focuses on the honor and sacrifice of the average soldier in WW2, Red Line does just the opposite, choosing more to focus on the bitterness and pure lack of emotions that many soldiers faced.

In this film, we are introduced to a group of men who are as diverse and differing as one could dream up. There is a dreamer(play by Jim Caviezel) who chooses to see the good in all, a over-ambitious major(Nick Nolte), a compassionate captain(Elias Koteas), and many others who embody fear, reluctance, cowardess, love, isolation, synicism, and total lack of hope, among other things.

Many have said that the film is not a true portrayal of war, focusing mainly on Caviezel's character and using his dream-like attributes as ammo for their ridicule of the film. Let me say this: HE IS THE ONLY CHARACTER LIKE THAT!! All the others are just as normal as you and I and who's to say that people like Witt do not exist, even in times of war. To me, he embodies a Christ-like figure who even put's himself in the shoes of one of the dead Japanese soldiers at one point. When people blast this film, I immediately know they are skeptics who are probably negative and who harshly judge the world they live in. Maybe that's the point of the film too: that this world has beauty but man, left to himself, will eventually destroy it all, even turn on each other. If you have never watched this film, please don't compare it to other war films. This movie will not make you cry; it will, however, make you think if you allow it to.

On a parting note, I am fascinated by a scene where a young boy dies in the arms of his commanding officer. I never cried in the scene, and maybe that's what Malick(the director) wanted. To not cry is to feel like many soldiers did in the past few wars. Most of them lost the ability to feel and to cry during the war. This movie is a great film but will never get the praise it deserves because of people who compare it to Saving Private Ryan. If you have an open mind and don't have to have everything explained to when you watch a film, this might be for you. If you get your kicks from films that force you to cry, try Saving Private Ryan.

The Crossing Guard is a pyschological drama and study. I don't think it set out to be the most meaningful or important movie of the year. And it doesn't need to be. It explains itself neatly and on time - it doesn't drag along. We are well introduced to all the characters and their points of view - and as audience members are treated to some outstanding performances. I dare say even better than Jack Nicholson is David Morse, easily the best role of his career. The story concerns the pending release of John Booth (played by Morse) who was convicted of the hit and run drunk driving death of Nicholson's little girl. Since the tradgedy Nicholson and his wife (played by Angelica Huston) have split. Nicoholson now tries to kill time, and his memories, in a local strip joint - somtimes trying to get through to his fellow patrons, other times exploding in rages and all the while carefully marking the days off on a calender until John Booth is a free man so he can turn him into a dead one. Two other brief, but well turned roles are the almost totally inexperienced actor Robbie Robertson as Huston's new husband and Richard Brandford, who has made a career of playing 'heavies' as the convict's sympathetic father. I don't think Crossing Guard set out to be a masterpiece, and it need not be, it keeps us well within it's grip throughout, making us think, observe and wonder. This would make a nice double bill with 'The Pledge', in which we see a much more intense Nicholson performance. The Crossing Guard would make a nice warm up. Enjoy.

It's too long, too unfocused and way too self-indulgent. But in the end, none of this matters. Sean Penn's second effort as a director-screenwriter is compelling and emotionally resonant ways that more conventionally well-made films never manage to be. Jack Nicholson gives one of his finest performances as Freddy Gale, a jewelry store owner whose daughter was killed by a drunken driver six years before the story begins. Since then, the devastated Freddy has remained alive only by nursing the hope that he will be able to kill John Booth (David Morse), the man who accidentally killed his daughter. But as the guilt-racked Booth is released from prison, it becomes very clear that perhaps neither man really wants to live much longer. Throughout "Crossing Guard," Penn has a tendency to sledgehammer his way through walls rather than simply opening doors. Even so, he always gets where he wants to go -- to that dark corner of our hearts where we can forgive no one, not even ourselves. Co-star Anjelica Huston has a couple of terrific scenes as Freddy's ex-wife, a woman with her own share of guilt, fear and loathing.

...And David MORSE ! ... This tall man has killed his child, his son, and ever since this time he has ONE idea ! ONE project in his mind: " KILL HIM WHEN HE WILL GO OUT THE PRISON " He has lost anything, his wife, his comfort, his welfare when this man who was drunken at the time of facts and his revenge is puting near day after day this is an obsession for him, he go to advertise his almost former wife who he is outdoors but after a follow-up he doubt of himself, because his enemy goes around the tomb of his child while him himself has never made that this is a sort of redemption for these two men and mostly a forgiveness for the killer ! Jack NICHOLSON and David MORSE are perfects in this DVD MOVIE FILM ! ********** A GOOD TEAM

The 1994 original movie "The Cold Light of Day" is significantly better than Sean Penn's interpretation. I knew "The Pledge" was a bomb when a couple of viewers in different parts of the theater remarked on how lousy it was. The film left the Houston area about one week later headed for box office oblivion. Sean Penn made a horrible mistake in in keeping secret the identity of the sex deviate. This was frustrating to say the least and made the rest of the film seem pointless. Jack Nicholson did a good job as the alcoholic retired detective who pledges to a mother that he will find the killer of her daughter. However, Penn has Nicholson play the role of Jerry Black in such a manner as to suggest that the police officer committed himself to the case not so much as to solve it, but because the man has nothing better to do. Nicholson's character comes across as an existentially challenged individual who needs to find a purpose to make his life worth living. The murdered girl is merely an excuse to justifying getting up in the morning.

Penn's real life wife Robin Wright Penn is very convincing as the mother who accepts the generosity of the much older retired officer. Initially she seeks only a relationship which will secure a loving home for the young girl. A sort of romance soon develops between the two adults which seems only to bewilder and overwhelm the man. Wasn't the recent Academy Award winner Benico Del Toro, you might ask, also in the movie? Del Toro merely has about a five minute part indulging in histrionic mannerisms as a mentally retarded man falsely suspected of a vile crime. Penn essentially wasted this great actor's enormous talent. The other actors do little to balance out the deficiencies of Penn's directing.

I can give "The Pledge" only two stars. Only the true fans of Jack Nicholson will find it worth viewing. The previously mentioned "The Cold Light of Day," though, is highly recommended (four stars) as a something of a hidden gem. Rudolf Van Den Berg aptly directs this virtually unknown movie in an intelligent and exciting manner. The audience actually gets to understanding the sick motivations of the child killer. Van Berg's direction is not pretentious, and he accomplishes a lot with almost certainly a smaller budget. Sean Penn should seek instruction and guidance from Van Berg before he attempts another film.

Anyone expecting to find a formulaic cops-chase-killers movie should immediately move on to the latest Hollywood idiot fodder flick. "The Pledge" is intelligent, thought-provoking, well-directed, well-acted, and a feast for the senses.
I know many people who felt let down by this film, possibly because they expected the usual chase and hero's triumph at the end, which does not happen here. I found myself to be curious and somehow astonished by the end, and anxious to see it again.
Jack Nicholson gives one of his best latter-day performances here, and touches on areas which are not normally "Jack". By the end of the film, he is stunned and totally confused; knowing he was somehow right, though strange twists of fate conspire against him. It's almost Hitchcock territory; the man wrongly accused, or the man who knows all the facts, and yet no one believes him.
Sean Penn is no clown director; he's not making mass-market cheap thrill flicks here. He lets the story develop with a total absence of Hollywood cliches and setups. By the end, though most people will feel somehow cheated out of a visceral release, I feel viewers with an open mind who don't expect their movies to be served up like fast-food will be quite pleased. It's one of those movies you can talk about all night long.

This *is* a very different movie in the cop vs. serial killer genre. If you want a formula movie with a formula 3rd Act (plot twists that lead to ultimate victory), then look elsewhere.

Sean Penn has created a movie that starts routine, with a rich character study by Jack Nicholson, as the almost-retired Reno Detective Jerry Black. Jack Nicholson as a world-weary retiree is a joy to behold -- as he gazes on old photos of himself (clever cut-and-pastes using the young Jack Nicholson we know, placed in photos ... him with his Vietnam buddies, him getting a police medal), we see the evolution of Jack Nicholson, who puts his all into the very wise and flawed Detective Black.

Starting with a formula idea, -- that the conventional wisdom of who-did-it is wrong, --- and that even in retirement, Det. Black is continuing the hunt for the real killer, -- the film leads you down a conventional path and then jumps the track in Act 3, becoming a study in how things derail in real life, and how in real life tidy storybook endings may be the exception.

The ending is a dark and disquieting one, satisfying only in that the killer is stopped (although by an unexpected means). It *is* worth discussing the specifics of the ending, so if you don't want the ending spoiled for you, READ NO FURTHER.

Det. Black discovers that the killer goes after 7 year old blonde girls wearing red dresses. The killer's m.o. is that he first establishes a relationship with the victim (as a magical "Wizard"), and gives them little gifts, and gains their confidence over time, and then finally ritualistically sexually assaulting them and butchering them. The killer is tall and drives a dark station wagon.

Det. Black, a fisherman, foregoes buying a lakeside cabin, and instead buys a gas station (to track local vehicles, and tall guys). By happenstance, he takes in a battered wife and her 7 year old blonde girl. Without letting them in on his plans, he sets up a swing-set at roadside for the girl to play on (to attract the killer), and says nothing when the girl picks out a red dress at a clothing store. Without the mothers' consent, he thus sets up the girl as bait. By luck, the killer makes contact (the girl announces to Black, chillingly, "I've met the Wizard"), and sets up a meeting with the girl at a local park. Black then convinces his Reno swat team buddies to set up a surveillance, and they all wait for the killer to show.

Right here, the off-beat ending starts: The killer, unbeknownst to all, has a head-on collision on the highway, on the way to the park, and is dead. The swat team leaves, in disgust, believing that Black has led them on an insane goose chase. The girl's mother show up and breaks off her relationship with Black, rightly accusing him of manipulating her and her daughter into being unknowing bait. Black descends into an alcoholic insanity, and the ending shows him jabbering incoherently at the sky, his life in ruins.

So this ending is way unsatisfying for formula viewers -- if I was at the movies and wanted to feel good upon departure, I'd feel cheated. However, the acting throughout is superb, and is the movie's salvation:

Patricia Clarkson is intense as the mother of the first dead girl who extracts Jack's/Black's pledge to find the killer. Mickey Rourke is intense as a dead girl's father who fully explains the intensity with which he misses his dead daughter. Aaron Eckhart plays Det. Stan Krolak (Black's last partner) with a beautiful intensity. Eckhart has a gift for playing intense and not-so-bright characters (he was great as sleezy Del Sizemore in Nurse Betty), and his finger countdown from "3", boasting how fast he will extract a confession from a "slow" Indian (B. Del Toro), is a classic moment of bravado.

So even though the script trashes a feel good ending, the acting is wonderful, -- on balance, this is a great film (buy it!), but if (especially after 9-11-01) you want a feel-good ending, you will be let down.

The other let down is that the DVD is minimal -- no special features other than the trailer (I would have loved to hear a director's commentary with Sean Penn and Jack Nicholson) -- but the tranfer to DVD is crisp, both video and audio quality is excellent.

The 1994 original movie "The Cold Light of Day" is significantly better than Sean Penn's interpretation. I knew "The Pledge" was a bomb when a couple of viewers in different parts of the theater remarked on how lousy it was. The film left the Houston area about one week later headed for box office oblivion. Sean Penn made a horrible mistake in in keeping secret the identity of the sex deviate. This was frustrating to say the least and made the rest of the film seem pointless. Jack Nicholson did a good job as the alcoholic retired detective who pledges to a mother that he will find the killer of her daughter. However, Penn has Nicholson play the role of Jerry Black in such a manner as to suggest that the police officer committed himself to the case not so much as to solve it, but because the man has nothing better to do. Nicholson's character comes across as an existentially challenged individual who needs to find a purpose to make his life worth living. The murdered girl is merely an excuse to justifying getting up in the morning.

Penn's real life wife Robin Wright Penn is very convincing as the mother who accepts the generosity of the much older retired officer. Initially she seeks only a relationship which will secure a loving home for the young girl. A sort of romance soon develops between the two adults which seems only to bewilder and overwhelm the man. Wasn't the recent Academy Award winner Benico Del Toro, you might ask, also in the movie? Del Toro merely has about a five minute part indulging in histrionic mannerisms as a mentally retarded man falsely suspected of a vile crime. Penn essentially wasted this great actor's enormous talent. The other actors do little to balance out the deficiencies of Penn's directing.

I can give "The Pledge" only two stars. Only the true fans of Jack Nicholson will find it worth viewing. The previously mentioned "The Cold Light of Day," though, is highly recommended (four stars) as a something of a hidden gem. Rudolf Van Den Berg aptly directs this virtually unknown movie in an intelligent and exciting manner. The audience actually gets to understanding the sick motivations of the child killer. Van Berg's direction is not pretentious, and he accomplishes a lot with almost certainly a smaller budget. Sean Penn should seek instruction and guidance from Van Berg before he attempts another film.

Anyone expecting to find a formulaic cops-chase-killers movie should immediately move on to the latest Hollywood idiot fodder flick. "The Pledge" is intelligent, thought-provoking, well-directed, well-acted, and a feast for the senses.
I know many people who felt let down by this film, possibly because they expected the usual chase and hero's triumph at the end, which does not happen here. I found myself to be curious and somehow astonished by the end, and anxious to see it again.
Jack Nicholson gives one of his best latter-day performances here, and touches on areas which are not normally "Jack". By the end of the film, he is stunned and totally confused; knowing he was somehow right, though strange twists of fate conspire against him. It's almost Hitchcock territory; the man wrongly accused, or the man who knows all the facts, and yet no one believes him.
Sean Penn is no clown director; he's not making mass-market cheap thrill flicks here. He lets the story develop with a total absence of Hollywood cliches and setups. By the end, though most people will feel somehow cheated out of a visceral release, I feel viewers with an open mind who don't expect their movies to be served up like fast-food will be quite pleased. It's one of those movies you can talk about all night long.

This *is* a very different movie in the cop vs. serial killer genre. If you want a formula movie with a formula 3rd Act (plot twists that lead to ultimate victory), then look elsewhere.

Sean Penn has created a movie that starts routine, with a rich character study by Jack Nicholson, as the almost-retired Reno Detective Jerry Black. Jack Nicholson as a world-weary retiree is a joy to behold -- as he gazes on old photos of himself (clever cut-and-pastes using the young Jack Nicholson we know, placed in photos ... him with his Vietnam buddies, him getting a police medal), we see the evolution of Jack Nicholson, who puts his all into the very wise and flawed Detective Black.

Starting with a formula idea, -- that the conventional wisdom of who-did-it is wrong, --- and that even in retirement, Det. Black is continuing the hunt for the real killer, -- the film leads you down a conventional path and then jumps the track in Act 3, becoming a study in how things derail in real life, and how in real life tidy storybook endings may be the exception.

The ending is a dark and disquieting one, satisfying only in that the killer is stopped (although by an unexpected means). It *is* worth discussing the specifics of the ending, so if you don't want the ending spoiled for you, READ NO FURTHER.

Det. Black discovers that the killer goes after 7 year old blonde girls wearing red dresses. The killer's m.o. is that he first establishes a relationship with the victim (as a magical "Wizard"), and gives them little gifts, and gains their confidence over time, and then finally ritualistically sexually assaulting them and butchering them. The killer is tall and drives a dark station wagon.

Det. Black, a fisherman, foregoes buying a lakeside cabin, and instead buys a gas station (to track local vehicles, and tall guys). By happenstance, he takes in a battered wife and her 7 year old blonde girl. Without letting them in on his plans, he sets up a swing-set at roadside for the girl to play on (to attract the killer), and says nothing when the girl picks out a red dress at a clothing store. Without the mothers' consent, he thus sets up the girl as bait. By luck, the killer makes contact (the girl announces to Black, chillingly, "I've met the Wizard"), and sets up a meeting with the girl at a local park. Black then convinces his Reno swat team buddies to set up a surveillance, and they all wait for the killer to show.

Right here, the off-beat ending starts: The killer, unbeknownst to all, has a head-on collision on the highway, on the way to the park, and is dead. The swat team leaves, in disgust, believing that Black has led them on an insane goose chase. The girl's mother show up and breaks off her relationship with Black, rightly accusing him of manipulating her and her daughter into being unknowing bait. Black descends into an alcoholic insanity, and the ending shows him jabbering incoherently at the sky, his life in ruins.

So this ending is way unsatisfying for formula viewers -- if I was at the movies and wanted to feel good upon departure, I'd feel cheated. However, the acting throughout is superb, and is the movie's salvation:

Patricia Clarkson is intense as the mother of the first dead girl who extracts Jack's/Black's pledge to find the killer. Mickey Rourke is intense as a dead girl's father who fully explains the intensity with which he misses his dead daughter. Aaron Eckhart plays Det. Stan Krolak (Black's last partner) with a beautiful intensity. Eckhart has a gift for playing intense and not-so-bright characters (he was great as sleezy Del Sizemore in Nurse Betty), and his finger countdown from "3", boasting how fast he will extract a confession from a "slow" Indian (B. Del Toro), is a classic moment of bravado.

So even though the script trashes a feel good ending, the acting is wonderful, -- on balance, this is a great film (buy it!), but if (especially after 9-11-01) you want a feel-good ending, you will be let down.

The other let down is that the DVD is minimal -- no special features other than the trailer (I would have loved to hear a director's commentary with Sean Penn and Jack Nicholson) -- but the tranfer to DVD is crisp, both video and audio quality is excellent.

The 1994 original movie "The Cold Light of Day" is significantly better than Sean Penn's interpretation. I knew "The Pledge" was a bomb when a couple of viewers in different parts of the theater remarked on how lousy it was. The film left the Houston area about one week later headed for box office oblivion. Sean Penn made a horrible mistake in in keeping secret the identity of the sex deviate. This was frustrating to say the least and made the rest of the film seem pointless. Jack Nicholson did a good job as the alcoholic retired detective who pledges to a mother that he will find the killer of her daughter. However, Penn has Nicholson play the role of Jerry Black in such a manner as to suggest that the police officer committed himself to the case not so much as to solve it, but because the man has nothing better to do. Nicholson's character comes across as an existentially challenged individual who needs to find a purpose to make his life worth living. The murdered girl is merely an excuse to justifying getting up in the morning.

Penn's real life wife Robin Wright Penn is very convincing as the mother who accepts the generosity of the much older retired officer. Initially she seeks only a relationship which will secure a loving home for the young girl. A sort of romance soon develops between the two adults which seems only to bewilder and overwhelm the man. Wasn't the recent Academy Award winner Benico Del Toro, you might ask, also in the movie? Del Toro merely has about a five minute part indulging in histrionic mannerisms as a mentally retarded man falsely suspected of a vile crime. Penn essentially wasted this great actor's enormous talent. The other actors do little to balance out the deficiencies of Penn's directing.

I can give "The Pledge" only two stars. Only the true fans of Jack Nicholson will find it worth viewing. The previously mentioned "The Cold Light of Day," though, is highly recommended (four stars) as a something of a hidden gem. Rudolf Van Den Berg aptly directs this virtually unknown movie in an intelligent and exciting manner. The audience actually gets to understanding the sick motivations of the child killer. Van Berg's direction is not pretentious, and he accomplishes a lot with almost certainly a smaller budget. Sean Penn should seek instruction and guidance from Van Berg before he attempts another film.

Anyone expecting to find a formulaic cops-chase-killers movie should immediately move on to the latest Hollywood idiot fodder flick. "The Pledge" is intelligent, thought-provoking, well-directed, well-acted, and a feast for the senses.
I know many people who felt let down by this film, possibly because they expected the usual chase and hero's triumph at the end, which does not happen here. I found myself to be curious and somehow astonished by the end, and anxious to see it again.
Jack Nicholson gives one of his best latter-day performances here, and touches on areas which are not normally "Jack". By the end of the film, he is stunned and totally confused; knowing he was somehow right, though strange twists of fate conspire against him. It's almost Hitchcock territory; the man wrongly accused, or the man who knows all the facts, and yet no one believes him.
Sean Penn is no clown director; he's not making mass-market cheap thrill flicks here. He lets the story develop with a total absence of Hollywood cliches and setups. By the end, though most people will feel somehow cheated out of a visceral release, I feel viewers with an open mind who don't expect their movies to be served up like fast-food will be quite pleased. It's one of those movies you can talk about all night long.

This *is* a very different movie in the cop vs. serial killer genre. If you want a formula movie with a formula 3rd Act (plot twists that lead to ultimate victory), then look elsewhere.

Sean Penn has created a movie that starts routine, with a rich character study by Jack Nicholson, as the almost-retired Reno Detective Jerry Black. Jack Nicholson as a world-weary retiree is a joy to behold -- as he gazes on old photos of himself (clever cut-and-pastes using the young Jack Nicholson we know, placed in photos ... him with his Vietnam buddies, him getting a police medal), we see the evolution of Jack Nicholson, who puts his all into the very wise and flawed Detective Black.

Starting with a formula idea, -- that the conventional wisdom of who-did-it is wrong, --- and that even in retirement, Det. Black is continuing the hunt for the real killer, -- the film leads you down a conventional path and then jumps the track in Act 3, becoming a study in how things derail in real life, and how in real life tidy storybook endings may be the exception.

The ending is a dark and disquieting one, satisfying only in that the killer is stopped (although by an unexpected means). It *is* worth discussing the specifics of the ending, so if you don't want the ending spoiled for you, READ NO FURTHER.

Det. Black discovers that the killer goes after 7 year old blonde girls wearing red dresses. The killer's m.o. is that he first establishes a relationship with the victim (as a magical "Wizard"), and gives them little gifts, and gains their confidence over time, and then finally ritualistically sexually assaulting them and butchering them. The killer is tall and drives a dark station wagon.

Det. Black, a fisherman, foregoes buying a lakeside cabin, and instead buys a gas station (to track local vehicles, and tall guys). By happenstance, he takes in a battered wife and her 7 year old blonde girl. Without letting them in on his plans, he sets up a swing-set at roadside for the girl to play on (to attract the killer), and says nothing when the girl picks out a red dress at a clothing store. Without the mothers' consent, he thus sets up the girl as bait. By luck, the killer makes contact (the girl announces to Black, chillingly, "I've met the Wizard"), and sets up a meeting with the girl at a local park. Black then convinces his Reno swat team buddies to set up a surveillance, and they all wait for the killer to show.

Right here, the off-beat ending starts: The killer, unbeknownst to all, has a head-on collision on the highway, on the way to the park, and is dead. The swat team leaves, in disgust, believing that Black has led them on an insane goose chase. The girl's mother show up and breaks off her relationship with Black, rightly accusing him of manipulating her and her daughter into being unknowing bait. Black descends into an alcoholic insanity, and the ending shows him jabbering incoherently at the sky, his life in ruins.

So this ending is way unsatisfying for formula viewers -- if I was at the movies and wanted to feel good upon departure, I'd feel cheated. However, the acting throughout is superb, and is the movie's salvation:

Patricia Clarkson is intense as the mother of the first dead girl who extracts Jack's/Black's pledge to find the killer. Mickey Rourke is intense as a dead girl's father who fully explains the intensity with which he misses his dead daughter. Aaron Eckhart plays Det. Stan Krolak (Black's last partner) with a beautiful intensity. Eckhart has a gift for playing intense and not-so-bright characters (he was great as sleezy Del Sizemore in Nurse Betty), and his finger countdown from "3", boasting how fast he will extract a confession from a "slow" Indian (B. Del Toro), is a classic moment of bravado.

So even though the script trashes a feel good ending, the acting is wonderful, -- on balance, this is a great film (buy it!), but if (especially after 9-11-01) you want a feel-good ending, you will be let down.

The other let down is that the DVD is minimal -- no special features other than the trailer (I would have loved to hear a director's commentary with Sean Penn and Jack Nicholson) -- but the tranfer to DVD is crisp, both video and audio quality is excellent.

This is movie is horrible, period. As my friend succintly put it after watching this disaster of a movie, "This sure seems like a lot of favors." I mean, every time I am about to watch one of the movies with Sean Penn leading or one that he directed, the question is: is it gonna rise above the 2 stars? Well, this film failed with flying colors, so to speak.

Mainly it is the screenplay, but direction, casting and the ending disappoint badly. The Pledge is not one of those movies that sucks and you know it from the first 10 minutes. Instead, it draws you in with false advertising, pledging to deliver the goods eventually, but never does. The suckiness escalates throughout, as you start realizing that you just wasted another 2 hours of your time on somebody's pet project.

If you like experimenting, or have already seen every other movie with Jack Nicholson, Benicio Del Toro, Sean Penn or Robin Wright, see this. Otherwise, pass.

I kept wonderdering when this picture would start-but was glad when it was over. It is pathetic and beneath the talent of Jack Nicholson. A horrible script and a disgrace for movie watchers. Wish I could rate it below zero.

Benicio Del Toro make a riveting cameo appearance as a mentally challegenged native american in this powerful tale of murder and mystery.Robin Wright Penn is superb as usual and Jack Nicholson pulls out a spectacular performance in this thriller.

Lighten up, film buffs; the 1989 version of We're No Angels may not be a great film, but that's because you're comparing it to other works made by these people, not to mention the 1955 version, which I haven't seen and so don't care about. It's an amazing array of talent: Robert DeNiro, _the_ best actor of his generation; Sean Penn, one of the best of his; Ray MacAnally, one of the finest Irish actors of any generation; Neil Jordan, who went on to direct the greatest Irish movie to date, "The Butcher Boy"; and David Mamet, who, well, writes great plays. Personally I don't rate Mamet as a film-maker, except that he can turn out workmanlike scripts when called upon to do so, and he does so here.

The fact that this is probably the worst film that any of these people have ever been involved in is one of the things that makes it so entertaining. When I saw it first, as a teenage drama student, I was somewhat perplexed by DeNiro's wincing, shrugging performance as the useless con who's forced to masquerade as a priest, but looking at it now I laugh my ears off. His timing is actually very good, and while DeNiro has never been brilliant at comedy (Rupert Pupkin is the exception that proves the rule - Pupkin is so desperate to be funny that he's actually painful to watch) you can, if you watch this movie enough times, end up rooting for him. He's so obviously telling himself "Keep it light, Bob, this is meant to be a comedy" that he gets a sympathy laugh, from me at any rate.

Sean Penn is actually very good, although I can't help wondering what this utter innocent could have done to have wound up in prison in the first place. His sermon improvised from a Colt advertising flyer is a beautiful piece of acting. Everybody likes to dump on Demi Moore because she got delusions of grandeur and started taking herself seriously, but here she has moments of real power and pathos, which work the more because it's based on a lightness that she hasn't really allowed herself for a long time since.

I mean, yeah, it's a preposterous movie. But I still laugh aloud at it, if for the wrong reasons, and I'd rather watch it than probably anything by the Farrelly Brothers, if only because it's so...unguarded. The Farrellys always know what they're doing; here it's as though everybody made a bad decision, and that makes them endearingly vulnerable for ninety minutes. "Go with God", indeed.

This is not a bad movie. Is it the best movie of all time? well, no, but it's amusing in its own right. It is no worse than a thousand other movies that people hail as terrific!

The premise is unusual and funny. The outcome is touching and uplifting. In between are some comedic moments. Not a terrible flick.

I thought it was a good movie. It stands on its own, why spend time comparing to the 1955 original? It's got everyting: a good plot, lots of action, and DeNiro's facial gymnastics. Maybe it's not a classic, but it is entertaining and even a bit uplifting.

While there are many interesting things about this movie, the ending sinks the drama. While I was convinced that Thomas drowns, my wife thought he didn't; so any film that leaves you with that large of a plot hole sinks from the weight of editing.

"The Weight of Water" was introduced in 2000 at the Toronto film festival and then not released for 2 years. Katherine Bigelow who has directed "Point Break" and "K-19: The Widowmaker" with Harrison Ford does a good job of filming two parallel stories, although they don't really have any relationship to each other.

The actors do turn in some interesting performances and are a joy to watch even if the film doesn't completely make sense. British actress Catherine McCormack who was so memorable in Mel Gibson's "Brave Heart" and also appeared in "Dancing at Lughnasa" with Meryl Streep and "The Tailor of Panama" gives an edgy performance as photographer Jean Janes whose marriage is on the ropes. She does a splendid job of being attracted to her husband, her brother-in-law, being frigid, and worrying about her husband's attraction to the oh-so-topless Adaline playing with an ice cube on the deck of the boat. Perhaps a tad less nervous, this is the type of performance that Jane Fonda used to nail.

Elizabeth Hurley who gained fame as Hugh Grant's girlfriend while he was cruising the streets, gives a seductive, albeit one-note performance, as a poet groupie.

Sean Penn didn't add to his 3 Oscar nominations ("Dead Man Walking," "Sweet & Lowdown," "I Am Sam") with this film, but does an interesting job of portraying a troubled poet with a haunted past.

Josh Lucas isn't as memorable as he was in "Sweet Home Alabama," nor does his performance have neither the meat of "An Incredible Mind" nor the entertainment value of "The Hulk." However, he looks great on the boat and seems to have some emotional variety in the scene where he swims out to check on his sister-in-law.

The past story that is edited back and forth with the present also boasts some interesting performances. Most notable is Sarah Polley as Maren who appeared in the very confusing beauty & the beast-type tale "No Such Thing." I don't know what she'll have to do in the upcoming "Dawn of the Dead," but here she gives a multifaceted performance as the lonely, isolated wife of a fisherman who was banished from her home for getting a bit too close to her brother. The scene where she also gets a bit too close to her brother's wife played by Vinessa Shaw who got a bit too close to Tom Cruise in "Eyes Wide Shut" is an eye opener.

The late Katrin Cartlidge does an excellent job as the straight-laced judgmental sister Karen who should've kept her mouth shut and winds up as one of the 2 corpses. Ulrich Thomsen plays husband John Hontvendt is a less than memorable role. Danish soap star Anders W. Berthelsen plays Maren's beloved brother. Irish actor Ciaran Hinds from "The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover" plays Louis Wagner who is accused and executed for the murders.

This is an interesting film to watch for the performances, although the editing and the ending may leave you scratching your head to figure out what went on. Taxi!

**1/2 In its basic structure and format, "The Weight of Water" is very similar to the far more impressive film "Possession" from 2002. In both movies, we get two different stories running simultaneously: one, a mystery set in the past, and, the other, a personal drama located in the present, involving a group of characters reflecting on and trying to make sense of the events that took place a century or so earlier.

The story-within-a-story in "The Weight of Water" is a true-life account of a brutal double murder that took place on a remote island off the coast of New Hampshire in the 1870's. Two out of the three women who were on the island that fateful night fell victim to the murderer, with the third escaping and fingering a man - a former boarder - as the culprit. The man was convicted and hanged for the offense, yet, more than a century later, a shadow of doubt hangs over the verdict. One of the modern-day doubters is Jean Janes, a photographer who ventures to the island to do a shoot of the location, only to find herself strangely obsessed with uncovering the truth about the case. Accompanying her on her quest are her husband, Thomas, a celebrated poet; Rich, his handsome brother whose boat they use to get to the island; and Adaline, the latter's gorgeous girlfriend who also happens to be a devotee of Thomas' literary work and a bit of a "groupie," as it turns out, in both tone and temperament, attaching herself rather obviously to the talented young bard, despite the fact that his observant wife is on the boat with them. As in "Possession," the filmmakers in this film - screenwriters Alice Arlen and Christopher Kyle and director Kate Bigelow - shift constantly between the past and the present, allowing us to piece together the clues as to what really happened on that island over 130 years ago, and, at the same time, to examine the strained relationships among those contemporary figures looking for the answers.

The problem with "The Weight of Water" - as it is in many films with this dual-narrative structure - is that one story almost inevitably ends up dominating over the other. Certainly, both tales seem to want to make the same unified point: that love and passion are often such overwhelming forces in our lives that they can end up destroying us in the process. How often do luck, fate, personal demons or societal pressure force us to compromise those elemental passions raging within our hearts, leading us, ultimately, to all the wrong choices and wrong partners that we end up having to live with for the rest of our lives? This is certainly the case in the part of the story set in the past where loneliness, regret, even incest and lesbianism play a crucial part in what happens to the characters. We can understand what motivates these individuals to do what they do, since their hungers, needs and intentions are cleanly laid out and clearly defined.

The same, unfortunately, cannot be said for the outer story set in the present. These characters lack the necessary delineation to make us truly understand where they are coming from or to make us care where they are going. Catherine McCormack does a superb job as Jean, capturing the fears, jealousies and anxieties of this insecure modern woman, but the screenplay doesn't let us into her mind enough to show us what is really going on beneath the surface. We know that she is unhappy in her marriage, but we never really get to know why. The situation is not helped one bit by Sean Pean who barely registers an emotion in the crucial role of Jean's husband. Apart from the fact that he seems to be brooding all the time, we never get the sense that Thomas could really be the world-class poet we are told he is. As Adaline, Josh's tawny-haired girlfriend, Hurley looks great in her bikini, of course, but the character is little more than the stereotypical temptress placed there by the writers to serve as a source of strain and tension on the marriage. The movie also builds to a mini- "Perfect Storm"-type climax that seems forced, phony, arbitrary and all too convenient and, worst of all, fails to make the connection between the two narratives clear and comprehensible. The final scenes seem strained at best, as the authors attempt to bring all the disparate elements together - but to no real avail. The fact is that the filmmakers never make their case as to why we should find any kind of meaningful parallels between the characters and events in the two stories. The characters in the past are obviously hemmed in by the repressive society in which they live so we give them a little leeway and offer them our sympathy; the characters in the present, with so many more options open to them, just come across as whiney and self-pitying and we find ourselves growing more and more impatient with them (all except Jean, that is) as the story rolls along.

"The Weight of Water" wants to be an important and meaningful film, but only one half of its story truly earns those adjectives.

This movie really upset me. The Weight of Water is a film within a film. One storyline takes place somewhere on the East Coast in the 1800's. The other story takes place in modern times. The story that took place in the 1800's is much better than the modern story. Why you may ask? Storyline development. The modern day story is about Sean Penn and his journalist wife and his brother and the brothers hot girlfriend, Elizabeth Hurley.

The film never explains why Sean Penn's wife has a British accent and Liz Hurley also has a British accent in this film. So at one point, I was wondering, what is the deal, I mean what was the purpose of casting two British actresses? Was this integral to the storyline? Were the two women linked?

Another thing about the modern storyline, many "could it be?" scenarios are introduced but never resolved. When the film ends, you really don't know what happened to the people in modern times, whereas the 1800's storyline is clealy resolved.

It's not a bad film, but not well resolved.