The Pledge is a 2001 American neo-noir psychological mystery drama film directed by Sean Penn and starring Jack Nicholson alongside an ensemble supporting cast of Patricia Clarkson, Aaron Eckhart, Helen Mirren, Robin Wright Penn, Vanessa Redgrave, Sam Shepard, Mickey Rourke, Tom Noonan, Lois Smith and Benicio del Toro. It was in competition at the 2001 Cannes Film Festival.
The Pledge is based on Friedrich Dürrenmatt's 1958 novella The Pledge: Requiem for the Detective Novel. Dürrenmatt wrote the novella to refine the theme he originally developed in the screenplay for the 1958 German film It Happened in Broad Daylight with Heinz Rühmann.
Plot
Aging Reno, Nevada, police detective Jerry Black attends a retirement party hosted by his department, at which Captain Pollack presents tickets to Jerry for a fishing trip in Mexico as a gift. The celebration is interrupted by the discovery of a murdered child, Ginny Larsen. Jerry decides to go with another detective, Stan Krolak, to the scene of the crime.
Jerry delivers the bad news to Ginny's parents, and the mother, Margaret Larsen, makes Jerry swear on a cross, made by their daughter, that he will find the killer. A suspect, Toby Jay Wadenah, a Native American man with an intellectual disability, is found the next day. Stan uses Toby's disorder to his advantage, convincing him that he killed Ginny. After having confessed to doing so, Toby steals a deputy's gun and commits suicide. An autopsy on Ginny proves that she had consumed chocolate before she died; wrappers found in Toby's truck solidify the likelihood that he killed the little girl, and the case is closed, despite Jerry’s suspicions.
Still adamant about his pledge to find the killer, Jerry chooses not to go to Mexico and misses his flight. Instead, he visits Ginny's grandmother, Annalise Hansen, who tells him of the many stories that she and Ginny used to read; one tells of an angel who descends from Heaven in order to fly a deceased child over all the places they loved in life, before delivering them to God. Jerry then visits one of Ginny's friends, Becky Fiske, who reveals that she had made friends with a man she called "The Giant" shortly before she was killed. Jerry finds a picture Ginny drew of "The Giant", but it does not resemble Toby, and features a black station wagon and not the red truck driven by Toby. He takes the drawing with him.
Jerry goes to Stan and asks him to reopen the case. Stan refuses but gets Jerry more information about similar cases in the area. Jerry's investigations reveal three local, unsolved cases that bear the same M.O. as seen with Ginny's, and which Toby could not have possibly committed because he was incarcerated at the time. Jerry presents his research and Ginny's drawing to Captain Pollack and Stan, who are doubtful.
While fishing, Jerry notices a gas station that is located near the center of the cases. After buying the station, Jerry moves into the house behind it and meets local waitress/bartender Lori, and her daughter, Chrissy. He takes an interest in Chrissy and becomes friends with the small family. One night, Lori shows up at Jerry's house, bruised and battered, and explains that her ex (who has a restraining order) attacked her. Jerry, out of concern for their safety, suggests that Lori and Chrissy move in with him temporarily; she agrees. Jerry slowly develops a fatherly relationship with Chrissy, and even begins a romance with Lori herself.
One day, local pastor Gary Jackson visits Chrissy outside the station. Jerry suspects that Jackson is Ginny's killer after he invites Chrissy to his church. Jerry rushes to the church after Jackson picks her up one day while he was fishing, but finds it was nothing more than a close call, and that Jackson is not the killer.
Meanwhile, Chrissy meets a man who drives a black car with a toy porcupine hanging on the rear mirror; porcupines were another aspect of Ginny's drawing that stood out to Jerry . That night, while reading her a bed-time story, Chrissy tells Jerry that she met a "wizard" who gave her porcupine candies and told her not to tell anyone about their interaction. (A later scene hints that the chocolates are laced with narcotics.) Chrissy tells Jerry she is supposed to meet the "wizard" again the next day at a nearby picnic area. Using Chrissy as bait, Jerry stages an sting operation with Stan's help to catch the killer. However, while on the way to the meeting, the "wizard" dies in a car accident; hours later, the SWAT team gives up and leaves Jerry alone. They inform Lori of what is happening. She confronts Jerry angrily about putting Chrissy in danger, and breaks up with him.