The Pledge - Nicholson and Penn make for great cinema

Let me say that I wholeheartedly agree w/ the allmovie.com review of Sean Penn's The Pledge (2001): "The Pledge is pure cinema -- deep, meaningful, and about something. The film itself and the talents involved are so good that it doesn't really have to be perfect." This is dead-on. It's not a perfect movie -- the series of cameo appearances by Helen Mirren, Harry Dean Stanton, etc are distracting and detract from the main plot. But as a study of obsession, the film is very interesting. And Nicholson is such a pleasure to watch. In his way, he completely inhabits the character, literally loses himself in the role. He's a version of Nicholson we're somewhat familiar with, but w/ subtle differences. I'd imagine that only someone who could truly relate to the character -- who spends plenty of alone-time fishing in the wilderness of near Reno, NV -- would do such a fine job bringing him to life. As for Penn, he is getting better as a director (its a hard job to master!). One thing he could remind himself -- editing and camerawork are real real important. The length of the film could have been trimmed by 5-10 minutes and the camerawork could have been sharper and more revealing of the characters position in the broader landscape. But overall, a nice piece of work. Another round of applause should go to Nicholson -- I'm consistently amazed at his ability to pick such interesting subject matter and manage to work w/ such talented writers/directors/etc.