Sean Penn's third directorial outing, by turns pretentious and baffling, is a serious mess of a psychological thriller that completely wastes its all-star cast by confining most of them to two-minute cameos. While the stars get a moment to shine, they do nothing to shed light on character or, for the most part, plot. I don't report this with malice or glee; I love Sean Penn's acting work and had high hopes for this shot-in-B.C. effort. But, despite what you may have heard, after a riveting start the film quickly degenerates into a series of cinematic non-sequiturs that leave one either appalled by The Pledge's sloppiness or just plain confused as to the motives of all involved. Or both.

Jack Nicholson, now officially an elderly man, plays Reno police detective Jerry Black, whose retirement party is interrupted by news that a young girl's body has been found in a snowy field outside of town. As Penn leisurely cross-cuts between the party-given a vaguely hallucinatory feel by cinematographer Chris Menges' deliberately out-of-focus shots and the scene's slightly off-kilter ambience-and the gorgeous winter landscape where the girl's body is discovered, tension builds beautifully. Black, still a cop, is allowed to postpone retirement and take part in the investigation. At this point I thought we might have a rare bird indeed: a Hollywood thriller with a European soul.

I was wrong... After Black has determined that the cops have the wrong guy and that a serial killer is on the loose, the film sets itself up as a serious inquiry into Jerry Black's tormented psyche. But, beginning with the interrogation of a mentally handicapped suspect (Benecio Del Toro)-which goes violently awry-the movie continually squanders its opportunities. Del Toro's appearance serves only to provide him with a "Method Actor Moment" and does nothing to give us any insight into Nicholson's character. Later cameos by Vanessa Redgrave, Helen Mirren, Mickey Rourke and Harry Dean Stanton, are similarly ill-judged-they are nice actorly moments but little else.

Nicholson's portrayal of Black is so opaque as to make his motives indecipherable. Is it religion that spurs him on? A scene where he swears "on my soul's salvation" to bring the killer to justice suggests this, but is then dropped. Is it something from his past that motivates him? The film provides no clues.

A scene where Helen Mirren's character directly questions his sexuality-which makes him squirm-has possibilities, but that too is dropped. Eventually Black takes up with a waitress (Robin Wright Penn) who has a daughter the same age as the murdered young girl, and the core of the film begins to take shape. Is he using them for bait (as the film hints at repeatedly) or does he truly love them (which, again, the film suggests)? Or is it both? The maddening answer is that you just never know. Now, I'm all for ambiguity in terms of character motivation but Black's actions are the actions of a cipher, and a cipher does not make a good lead character in a movie.

To be fair, Black's opacity is as much the script's fault as it Nicholson's. Written by Jerzy and Mary-Olson-Kromolowski, the film aspires to be both a conventional thriller (complete with red herrings and graphic violence) and a European-influenced character study. Unfortunately, it fails on both levels.