MPAA Rating: R

Jack Nicholson stars as a police detective who, on the very night of his retirement party, vows to the mother of an eight-year-old girl who was raped and murdered, to find her killer. Also with Sam Shepard, Aaron Eckhart, Benicio Del Toro, Helen Mirren and Robin Wright Penn. [2:04]

SEX/NUDITY 2 - A woman caresses a man's face and they kiss. A woman puts a man's hand on her clothed breast and it is implied that they have sex although nothing else is shown. There is a clinical reference to whether or not a man is still sexually active. A man is shown shirtless and splattered with blood (see further description in Violence/Gore below).

VIOLENCE/GORE 8 - The very bloody crumpled body of a young girl is shown from different angles, several times including one close-up of her blood splattered face: she is seen lying in the snow with blood all around her. Autopsy photos of young girls are shown several times and lingered upon: they are very detailed and gruesome. A hallucination scene depicts a man standing over a dead, very bloody young girl; the man is shirtless, splattered with blood and wielding a bloody sickle. A man struggles with a policeman over a gun; the man gets the gun (offscreen), puts it in his mouth and fires, spraying blood all over the wall behind him. We see blood pouring from his mouth and we also see a man remove a gold tooth from the wall behind the victim. A woman is shown with a very bloody face after her husband has beaten her: she is frightened and frantic. We see a man cleaning her wounds (more blood runs from her lip). The result of a traffic accident is shown, with a car crumpled and burning; the camera zooms in on the charred and burning body of the driver. A man is shown a couple of times with dried bloody scratches on his forehead, nose and fingers. Another man is seen with a fresh bloody facial wound (mostly concentrated around his nose) as he is forcibly led into a police station. There are several discussions of the gruesome murders and sexual assault of young girls in varying detail including crime scene descriptions of wounds. Details of murders with descriptions of the victims are shown on a computer screen. There is a scene when a police officer reads the rap sheet of a man which includes juvenile rape and other assaults. A woman hits a man and hollers at him in grief, and a woman hits a man and hollers at him in anger. A man acts deranged, stumbling around drunk and talking to himself. One character is pretty creepy looking with his hair hanging in his face and acting animalistically. A dead deer is shown strapped to the roof of a car, and a dead chicken is picked up from the floor of a coop. A man drives recklessly, runs through several fences and nearly hits some cows. There are several very tense scenes: we anticipate the arrival of the murderer and fear for another young girl; a man runs from behind some trees acting agitated and frightened, and a boy comes upon something in the woods that scares him and he runs away gasping for air.

PROFANITY 6 - Nine F-words, a profane hand gesture, a few anatomical terms, several insults, and about eight religious profanities and a few religious exclamations. Some explicit references to violent sexual crimes. [profanity glossary]

DISCUSSION TOPICS - God, demons and angels, religion, the Bible as truth or fiction, kidnapping, regrets, promises, obsession, rape, suicide, grief, retirement.

MESSAGE - Trying to keep a promise can drive you as mad as any other obsession.

Special Keywords: S2 - V8 - P6 - MPAAR