| Schmaltz | 5 |
| Violence | 6 |
| Romance | 6 |
| Nudity and Sex | 2 |
| Plot | 8 |
| Buckets o' Blood | 7 |
| Terror | 1 |
Link in the Internet movie database
Synopsis: Detective Jerry Black -- Jack "I'm of a mind makes a movie" Nicholson -- swears upon his eternal soul to catch the man who has murdered a young girl and who may have murdered several others. The Pledge that Jerry makes (see? See? Two lines in and already we've invoked the title! Life is good) begins to obsess him, and so he retires to a small-town community where he suspects the serial killer will next strike. Along the way he takes in battered wife Lori -- Robin 'I may not be smart but I know what love is, Jenny' Wright, and her daughter. Jerry soon falls for Lori or perhaps it's vice versa, and the three become a happy family (and that's the way that they all became the Black Bunch...). But all throughout Jerry's sleepy life, one question remains: when will the killer strike again, and whom will he kill?
Commentary: There are a lot of beautiful people in this film. You just wouldn't know that to watch this film. What's impressed me more than anything else is that this film has somehow managed to achieve a level of true grittiness that other films tend only to emulate. Jack Nicholson looks, in a word, terrible and that fits his character perfectly. The scenery, while beautiful, never fails to remind you that this is all taking place in a small town. A real small town. Not the Hollywood version but the kind that you can actually believe houses this collection of sleepy-towners. Robin Wright looks better than most of the cast and yet even Ms Penn herself has had her beauty radically downplayed for this role. Why, you may ask, is all of this a benefit to the movie? After all, don't you tune in Baywatch every week just to see said beautiful people frollick 'pon the sand? Ask away!
You see, what the illustrious Sean 'I Dreamed of Shanghai' Penn has created here is a movie that actually manages to strip away most of the pretenses of the normal movie that we go to see every week, armed with over-buttered popcorn and overpriced fizzy drink that vaguely resembles something potable. The people whose lives we follow strike us as utterly flawed; and yet they are flawed in the normal, human way. They carry no tragic hubris upon their back; their flaws are not played out dramatically; in fact, there's a good deal of downplaying of the dramatic conceit in this film overall. What we're left with is a main character who evokes our sympathy, but whom we can't ever really see as the hero of the piece. This is all summed up beautifully by the ending, which I will spoiler here if you wish to see.
Is this movie for you? Well, let's see. The scenery is beautiful. The camera-work is outstanding. The acting is so good, you'll forget the fibre. The plot breaks all of the conventions that it would otherwise seem to be following. I don't regret that I saw this film. I probably won't ever see it again -- now that I've seen it once, I don't think it would be anywhere near as powerful a second time. If you enjoy this sort of a thing, go and catch this film. If you prefer the bouncing bosoms of Pamela Lee Anderson, however, stay away. Far awaaaay. And if you like both, go see the film!
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