Absolutely amazing

A different way of telling a story

Go in cold, and you're likely to emerge with your blood boiling. This has to be seen to be believed.

The movie is made so realistic it has a lot of that WoW feeling at the right moments and never tooo over the top. the suspense is done so well and the emotion is felt. Very well put together with the music and all.

As a kid I remember watching the movie Es geschah am hellichten Tag / The bait (Ladislao Vajda, 1958) several times and it was an always exciting experience, no matter I already knew exactly what happend on it, who was the murderer and so on... Today I've seen Th Pledge on TV (did't even know a remake had been made of the great movie I enjoyed so much in my youth) and recognized the story at once but has really been annoying watching how can a great story can develope into such a boring movie. by the way: why does Penn need 2h 4m to tell it? Removing the useless footage this movie could have lasted little more than one hour, I think it's stupid Penn makes it longer than 2 hours!Also the end, completely different to the original story, is pretty stupid and disappointing. Awful movie...

Left me wanting more. Mystifying ending, and not in a good way

How does a fine actor direct a film where he elicits unforgettable performances from ten, or so, of the best actors alive on the planet in service of a compelling story, yet end up with a 5 star film? Start with a decent script in crying need of a final rewrite; proceed with cinematography that rolls from redundantly hyper-dramatic to b-roll mediocrity of a bad travelogue, then edit the film with disrespect for the pace that the characters are driving the action.If you like great acting you'll love this film; if you love great films, you'll hate it. I loved and hated "The Pledge." It a disaster of spectacular potential. 5/10

I've seen 'The pledge' a few times before, but after having seen the original 'Es geschah am hellichten tag' (1958) not too long ago, I thought I'd catch this one on the telly - in spite of commercials. It's now for the first time I found out who exactly the killer is, although it could be argued that this man (the husband of the candy store woman) is another red herring - I personally would think that to be a total stretch. But then, if he is the killer, why wouldn't Jerry (or anyone else) find out about this accident with a black car and that the dead man is quite tall, and he sold little hedgehog candy in his store? And why did Jerry drink and drive anyway (at beginning of the film)? It's probably an indication of his deteriorating state.Anyhoo, the film has lots of wonderful cinematography, a rather slow pacing and plenty of soothing, beautiful music. But somehow I don't feel that Jack Nicholson's talent was utilized enough, which must have had something to do with the direction, but also with that contrived development in the story, in which the friendship between Lori and Jerry suddenly becomes a relationship. It didn't feel plausible to me. Then, there were small supporting roles by quite a few unexpected familiar faces, such as Mickey Rourke, Harry Dean Stanton, Vanessa Redgrave and Helen Mirren, mostly just single scenes - how odd and how inane that all seemed, cameos like that in a film like this.But the film, as a whole, was certainly 'entertaining' enough, being a '90s thriller from the 21st century. And with its considerable length, it felt a bit like a miniseries, which was not a bad thing.For this attempt, I'm much more mild than for the 1958 version, since Lori gives Jerry hell eventually and the whole story has a better build-up. 7 out of 10.