... will Jack Nicholson's character Jerry Black and those cops leaving put two and two together and figure out that the main serial killer got killed in that car accident, and will Jack finally rest and live with a clean conscience?
Or will he be driven mad, spend the rest of his life in a mental institute and ultimately no one will ever know?
Cheers.
It's a bleak movie so I think the implication is that no one will connect the dots.
shareI did not read the book. I only watched this movie. But, I think the ending suggests that Jerry, the police and everyone else did not, will not, discover the truth. It ends in tragedy except the serial killer was killed.
As a side note: I kind of liked the idea of the serial killer being a church pastor. I have known a few pastors and priests that were a little bit creepy. They seemed like if they were not spreading the word of god they would find some other form of mischief.
The German novel was written in 1958 and the author died in 1990. This story was done several times and even the writer hated some of the adaptations. This movie, The Pledge, is more faithful to the book. The wrier did not want the detective to achieve success and wanted what happened to him in this movie. But the one I liked better was The Cold Light of Day with Richard Grant, which many did not like. It was haunting and in its own way, much darker. It had the same tone as the Dutch/French movie The Vanishing, probably the most terrifying of all psychological thrillers.
share"...The Cold Light of Day..."
I guess that Bruce Willis/Henry Cavill movie going by the same name was a very loose adaptation. ;)
No, they are two different movies with the same name. The Cold Light of Day (1996) has the same plot as The Pledge. A rogue detective is trying to find a killer of little girls. He notices that the girls who were killed were picked up near a highway and manipulates a mother and her young daughter to live near that highway. Sets up a swing and uses the child as bait to catch the killer. His plan is not far fetched. And then there’s the ending.
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