This grim, no comedy movie has a topic no one wants to talk about: an eight-year-old girl sexually assaulted and brutally murdered.

Yet I found it put together with a clever plot that if revealed would just destroy the film, so I'm clamping clamming up right now.

The story is easy to follow but doesn't reveal anything too far ahead, so it keeps your interest.

A good solid murder mystery with Jack Nicholson putting on another great performance .

Well directed and grisly, it is innovation with no purpose as Sean Penn breaks the Hitchcock rule of direction: " Never build suspense if you have no intention of relieving it."

Its slow and tedious approach and use of major stars in cameos boils down to nothing more than storytelling with no catharsis.

Considering the star power, very disappointing.

The Pledge is a psychological murder mystery in which the main character is almost instantly the investigator and possible suspect.

Jack Nicholson plays the perfect role as a rough-looking Nevada detective who is drawn at the last minute before his retirement into what he thinks is the botched investigation of the gruesome murder of an eight-year-old girl.

The star makes a pledge to the girl's parents--and for the salvation of his soul--to find the killer.

This dark and disturbing, but thoroughly involving movie, sets off depth charges of the inner being.