The Pledge

Jerry Black is a homicide detective in Nevada who reaches retirement just as a young girl is found murdered in the mountains. His colleagues give him a plane ticket to Mexico, where he has long wanted to go fishing, but the discovery of the body keeps him on the job. He takes it upon himself to tell the girl's parents what happened, and her mother asks him to promise that he will find whoever killed her daughter. Jerry gives her that promise, and it pulls him into an investigation that continues well past the point where his career was supposed to end, even after the case appears to be closed.

Sean Penn directed the film, his third feature after The Crossing Guard, working from a screenplay by Jerzy Kromolowski and Mary Olson-Kromolowski. Jack Nicholson plays Jerry Black, heading a cast that also includes Helen Mirren, Aaron Eckhart, Robin Wright, Sam Shepard and Benicio del Toro, with 36 credited performers in all. The production, a Swiss-American co-release from Warner Bros. Pictures, Summit Entertainment, Morgan Creek and Epsilon Motion Pictures, was made for about 35 million dollars.

The film was released in January 2001 and took in roughly 29 million dollars worldwide, less than its budget. On TMDB it holds a rating of 6.6 out of 10 from 1,258 votes, which suggests a modest reception from viewers.