My mistake. Somebody’s working on an animated series, maybe Travolta is to blame for this (again).
Thank you! I’ve said since I first saw it that it would have been a great movie if they’d ended it 30 seconds sooner.
For me it has to be “Seven”. Not so much it was a bad ending but I just didn’t like it. It made me feel crappy and I don’t pay $6.50 to feel crappy.
Just a sidenote-- The Play that this movie is based on. (Other Peoples Money-- I forget who actually wrote the play) ends with the DeVito character breaking up the company while Miller and DeVito end up together. (For those who haven’t seen it… they flirt with each other the whole movie.) Up until this last scene, the movie pretty much IS the play. The ending was changed for Hollywood happy ending purposes.
SPOILERS for The Pledge…
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*Sorry, but only an embittered cynic could think The Pledge was a great film. (And from interviews, I gather that Sean Penn is just such an embittered cynic.) The “moral” of the film seems to be: “Don’t bother trying to combat evil. You’ll never win, and you’ll only wind up frustrated and disillusioned. As a bonus you’ll also alienate those around you.”
Yes, I “get” that Nicholson was obsessing in an unhealthy way, and that he knowingly put the child at risk without letting the mother know what was up. But he did so in what was a good cause: stopping a serial killer. No way did he deserve the bitter payoff. What a dreary, pessimistic world Mr. Penn inhabits.
Still more spoilers for The Pledge follow…
I think you’re overstating the case. The movie certainly has a cynical edge to it: in a more “idealistic” (and less interesting) movie, the hero would triumph in the end because of his persitence and inherent goodness. But I don’t think you have to be an embittered cynic to like it. The movie’s point, or part of it anyway, is not that it is pointless to combat evil, but that good intentions (which Nicholson’s character certainly has) are not enough. As you point out, Nicholson is obsessing in an unhealthy way, and that is what causes him to endanger the girl’s life…not his good intentions.
The film is a tragedy. The movie does not suggest that Nicholson “deserves” his fate any more than Hamlet “deserved” to die at the end. (Whoops…forgot to put a Hamlet spoiler warning. 
) I think it’s clear that Nicholson’s character is a good man and deserves peace. The tragedy is that he does not allow himself to have it.
Sorry for the digression, folks. Please resume talking about bad movie endings.
Ok, one of the ones that really bothers me is how they end movies like Some Like It Hot and My Fair Lady and several other movies of that era. The woman seems to form a friendly bond with one of the characters. Monroe with the Lemon character and Woods with the professor’s friend. While the other male lead is generally mean to her, especially in My Fair Lady and then when the end comes does the woman end up with the man who’s been nice to them, whom they seem to be forming a bond with? No they end up with the man who’s been mead to them!
It’s almost as if the ending was written by somebody else who hasn’t seen the movie but only heard a brief synopsis. Annoys the heckowie out of me.
I thought the ending to AI turned what was otherwise a merely creepy and dumb movie into a galactic crapfest. It was tacked on and an insult to my intelligence.
Still more spoilers for The Pledge…
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
The Pledge is unquestionably a tragedy, but it’s hard to enjoy a tragedy where the protagonist’s “fatal flaw” is his doggedness in pursuing a child-killer. For a tragedy to be enjoyable to me, the “fatal flaw” should be something a bit more…reprehensible. Movies about bad things happening to good people may be interesting to you, but to me (and I think to most folks) they are depressing and disturbing. What is the point of making such a movie? What is the director’s message? “Life sucks?” Thanks for clearing that up for us Sean; it sure was worth every penny of the 7 bucks I paid to find that out.
Let me elaborate a bit on my loathing for The Pledge by contrasting it with a far better tragedy, Sling Blade. Sling Blade qualifies as a tragedy because the good-hearted protagonist comes to an unfortunate end, locked away in a mental institution. But what separates Sling Blade (a good and enjoyable movie) from The Pledge (a depressing piece of dreck) is the redemption in the film. Carl may get a raw deal at the end of Sling Blade, but he has the comfort of knowing that he has saved his young friend from a life of misery. Jack Nicholson’s character in The Pledge just gets screwed. Nihilistic crap, IMHO.
If it makes you feel any better, in the play Pygmalion (on which My Fair Lady is based, and indeed takes a great deal of the dialogue verbatim) Eliza does indeed ditch Professor Higgins for Freddy (the nice guy). Shaw even wrote a lengthy epilogue to the play (in short-story form, not as script) to avoid productions that would imply otherwise. Doubtless he’s spinning in his grave over My Fair Lady… 
(Actually, I love My Fair Lady, but I don’t like the ending either – the play’s ending is much better.)
More spoilers concerning The Pledge.
May I point out that in this particular case of combatting evil, Nicholson does win? He has accomplished his goal of stopping the serial killer, even if he doesn’t know it. He had a choice: his own happiness (and that of the woman and child who had grown to love him), or pursuing an ill-advised promise he made to a stranger in the course of his work. In other words, his family or his job. He chose his job.
Think of it this way. Suppose the porcupine man hadn’t been killed in the car wreck on his way to meet with the girl. He would have been caught, and the Nicholson character would have been vindicated in the eyes of his colleagues, but he still would have sacrificed his family for his obsession. I don’t see any possibility of him reconciling with Penn after he used her daughter to bait a serial killer, and what’s more, he doesn’t deserve it. He deserves our pity, but not our sympathy.
I like the parallel with Hamlet. In both cases, the protaganist ends up in a hell of his own making, destroying the lives of those around them.
Even Hamlet died knowing that he had avenged his father. Redemption and closure.
Along the lines of the example given by Kittykat444 and Superdude, I think that John Singleton really stepped into it with his ending to Boyz N Da Hood.
It’s a magnificent ending, strongly spelling out Cuba’s resolution to escape the hell he lives in, with his girl. His morally bereft friend (Ice Cube) fades away, and we know he will meet his demise there in Compton. Beautiful, expert, near-wordless storytelling.
Then, just in case the symbology was a little too subtle for you, they spelled it out, literally. I’ll bet the same wormy little bastard who screwed up Unbreakable was sitting over Singleton’s shoulder, too, saying, “never overestimate the stupidity of your audience, John.” What a shame.
Another vote for A.I., although I still thought it was good movie. Ideally, it should have ended with the lines “and the day after that… and the day after that.”
Instead we get deus ex Spielberg.
–sublight.
I wholeheartedly disagree. Seven has one of my favorite endings ever.
Next you will tell me the ending to the Usual Suspects sucked because the cops don’t get their man?
For every ten movies with happy endings, there should be at least one like Seven or The Fallen, just to keep us on our toes.
But… …there’s a new, updated version of “DIANETICS”, published every other year, with no additional writing credits. And my scientologist friends assure me that LRH went so high up the Tone Scale that he became pure vibrational energy and did not actually die. Personally, I look forward to any new projects he has-- They can only get better.
His fatal flaw is not his doggedness, his fatal flaw is that he is obsessive to the point where his judgment is clouded, resulting in his making the unfortunate choice of putting a child’s life in danger.
No doubt there is a fine line between doggedness and obsession, particularly when it comes to matters of life and death. To me that’s what made the movie interesting. I found Nicholson’s obsession to be understandable, and that made the tragedy all the more poignant. Bad things happen to good people. Painful, yes…maybe even depressing. But also moving and thought-provoking, as few movies are.
You’re kidding, right? That ending was perfectly in keeping with the rest of the film. Looby-looby-looby-looby…