Sean Penn directs Jack Nicholson in The Pledge

Few actors of his generation have received the acclaim accorded Sean Penn. But acclaimed or not, what he really wants to do is direct. Penn's first film, The Indian Runner, showed a real cinematic flair that spoke well for his auteur ambitions. Unfortunately, Penn also wanted to write, and his screenplay for his next film, The Crossing Guard with Jack Nicholson, sabotaged what might have been a worthy successor. This time he has left the writing to others and justifies Nicholson's faith in him.

The Pledge starts off looking like it's going to be a festival of cliches. Nicholson is Jerry Black, an aging Nevada cop reluctantly stepping down but with nowhere to step to. His retirement party is interrupted by a report concerning the grisly murder of a 14-year old girl. Black, who sees nothing to celebrate anyway, tags along to the crime scene. When his less experienced colleagues balk at bringing the bad news to the girl's mother, he volunteers for the assignment.

Holding a cross made by her daughter, the girl's mother asks Black to swear on his "soul's salvation" that he'll find the killer. He accepts the challenge, but the way the scene is played it's hard to believe the mother's words haunt him enough to dominate his life. When the police arrest a mentally retarded Indian for the crime, they consider the case closed after the suspect commits suicide, but Black is not satisfied. He continues the investigation on his own, even going so far as to buy a rundown gas station because it's where the killer's car is believed to have made a stop.

By this time, it becomes clear that the scene between Black and the victim's mother was right on target. Black is not driven by his promise to the mother, but by his own private demons. A lifelong bachelor, his job was his life. The suspects he interrogates, the witnesses he interviews, his fellow police officers--they are his only community. Without his job, he is a man adrift. Scenes of Black fishing alone surrounded by nature's beauty never suggest the tranquility such scenes usually evoke, only isolation and despair. When he takes up with a waitress played by Robin Wright, the relationship only fuels his obsession because Black sees the woman's daughter as bait to lure the killer.

As we watch Black futilely try to hang onto his former life, we are also watching Jack Nicholson return to the kind of role worthy of his talent. After a decade in which the three time Oscar winner spent his time in high profile product requiring little more than his "Jack" persona, Nicholson is an actor again, not an icon. In Jerry Black, you can even hear faint echoes of his earlier roles: the restless Bobby Dupea of Five Easy Pieces, the disillusioned brother of King of Marvin Gardens, and even a touch of J.J. Gittes, the private eye whose morality was no match for the corruption in Chinatown.

We are also watching Sean Penn come into his own as a director. With a talented crew behind him, he fulfills the promise he showed in The Indian Runner. This is a man who may have even studied silent films when preparing to direct because he uses silence beautifully, especially in the memorable scene in which Black tells the victim's mother of her daughter's fate. Not a word is spoken between them, yet the scene has more impact than a dozen car crashes from a dozen lesser films.

Penn also surrounds his star with a first rate cast. Vanessa Redgrave, Robin Wright, and Sam Sheperd, among others, all provide excellent support. Penn even gives Mickey Rourke an opportunity to rehabilitate himself, which he does in an affecting cameo as the murdered girl's father.

The Pledge is being sold as another serial killer thriller. That may be the bait to lure you into the theater, but it's Jerry Black's torment that will stay with you when the lights are turned on.

Brian W. Fairbanks

Originally published at Paris Woman Journal
© 2001 Brian W. Fairbanks



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Traffic (2001)

Anyone who has watched with pity, scorn, or exasperation, the ruin that drugs have made of the life of a loved one doesn't need a lecture on the danger of illegal drugs. Director Steven Soderbergh knows that, and his new film, Traffic, doesn't lecture. It weaves in and out of the lives of those on the front line in the war on drugs, shifting back and forth between three different stories, observing the players, but never pointing an accusing finger at any of them. It's aware that when it comes to drugs, the victim and the culprit are often difficult to tell apart. Unfortunately, it's that very knowledge that cripples the movie.

Traffic begins in Mexico where a major drug bust is intercepted by a general who stands to profit from the success of the country's drug cartels. Photographed with a glaring yellow tint, Mexico looks as seedy as it always does in the movies.

The scene shifts to the USA where an Ohio judge (Michael Douglas) is appointed the country's new drug czar. He receives sympathy rather than encouragement from his predecessor, a man who is convinced that his successor's mission is as doomed to failure as his was. But the new czar is an idealistic sort, at least in his public statements. The trouble is, while he concentrates on the big picture, his eyes are blind to his own corner of the canvas. He makes the rounds of Washington cocktail parties, discussing his agenda with the government elite, but he's unaware that his daughter is free-basing cocaine in the family bathroom.

Meanwhile, in a posh California suburb, a wealthy society girl (Catherine Zeta-Jones) sees her life of ease turned upside down when her husband is arrested for drug trafficking. It's the first clue she's had that her husband is something other than a legitimate businessman.

For two and a half hours, Traffic paints a portrait of despair. There's weariness in the eyes of the Mexican cop (Benicio Del Toro) who finds himself caught between his corrupt superiors, and the agents from the Drug Enforcement Agency who want him to be an informer. The drug czar is a ghost in his own home, and needs, as his wife tells him, three drinks just to say hello to his family. The California material girl, desperate to hang onto her life of luxury, takes over her husband's business affairs, concerned only with maintaining her lavish lifestyle at any cost.

Ambitious in a way few films have been of late, Traffic has its heart in the right place but not its head. It doesn't offer solutions and shouldn't be expected to, but it doesn't provide any insight either. It shows us the problem and the consequences, but so do television news reports. Soderbergh's lack of the kind of passion Oliver Stone might have brought to the topic leaves his film just lying there. Furthermore, much of what we see has been a staple of every cop show since Kojak. In addition to the forced irony of a drug czar with an addicted daughter, there's the amusing repartee between two street-smart cops (Don Cheadle and Luiz Guzman) assigned to a stakeout of the drug trafficker's home.

As troubling as it is to admit, Traffic is also a bit racist. It suggests the drug problem in our society is a problem only when it reaches the suburbs and infects the blue-eyed, blonde haired children of the upper middle class. When the czar's daughter sinks to prostitution, selling her body in flea bag hotels to support her habit, the customer we see her with is a black man. The filmmakers would deny it, of course, but this is meant as a double shock, a suggestion that she could sink no lower.

The performances are all good, and Soderbergh has assembled such a high profile cast that even the great Albert Finney pops up only briefly in a small role. The best moments belong to Cheadle and Guzman, who are smart and funny in a movie otherwise populated by characters that are sophisticated but dumb.

Named the best picture of the year by the New York Film Critics Circle, Traffic appears to be the front runner for the Oscar. That simply proves it's been a dismal year at the movies. Nancy Reagan's much ridiculed campaign advising young people to "just say no" to drugs may have been simplistic and perhaps naïve, but Traffic doesn't say much of anything. A film about a subject this serious should be compelling enough to stay with you for days. It should force the audience to ask themselves questions. By the time the credits rolled, the only question the film left me with was this one: what does Catherine Zeta-Jones see in Michael Douglas? By the time I got home, I was even asking myself what Douglas sees in her. That is not the mark of a masterwork.

Brian W. Fairbanks

Originally published at Paris Woman Journal
© 2001 Brian W. Fairbanks


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