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The Pledge, directed by Sean Penn and starring Jack Nicholson, ought to be getting better reviews than the so-so ones it's receiving. Yet critics appear to be having a difficult time describing what's wrong with it. Rick Groen, in the Toronto Globe & Mail, for example: "Something is absent, an essential spark hard to define yet crucial to possess." To be sure, critics are impressed with Penn's direction and Nicholson's performance but appear to be enervated by the gloomy overall tone of the film. And some suggest that audiences are being dished out an excess of impressive artistry. Bob Strauss in the Los Angeles Daily News writes, for example: "Penn sets an oppressive overall tone from the beginning, so we just know that things aren't going to turn out well. And as great as Nicholson's performance is, it's too much of a good thing for the narrative's sake. It's like Penn loathed the thought of cutting a single one of Jack's brilliant gestures, but leaving them all in builds a head of fatalistic repetition." |
