Now I must start by saying that personally I vehemently dislike Sean Penn. I think his ego is so enormous that it almost always oozes out of his performances making them dripping with sarcasm and over acted scenes. He has done some good films both recently and in the past but overall he thinks he is far better than he is. However it wasn't until the credits rolled on The Crossing Guard that I knew Mr. Sean Penn himself had directed and wrote this powerful film and kudos to him because he did an incredible job. The Crossing Guard is gritty, dark, bleak, a sad and depressing look into grief and death that will not bring you to tears but rather horror at how deep grief can take someone. That someone that we see gives such a powerful performance that I might go so far as to say that it is one of his best performances if not THEE best to date. Penn must known something about grief and the dark place a human can go because he captures the emotion like no other film I have ever seen and perhaps he owes a big part of that to his cast. I am still completely confused by the title...I mean I get that The Crossing Guard watches Nicholson's character as he almost makes his kill but other than that I don't make the connection. But title aside this is a must see film!!

Jack Nicholson plays Freddy Gale, the completely distraught, hopelessly depressed and lost father of a young girl killed by a drunk driver that spiraled his life into hopelessness. He lost his wife, his two sons who now know his ex-wife's new husband as "Dad." He's got questionable business practices running a seed Jewellery store, and his only friends and hang out are in a strip joint. Gale is such an intriguing and incredibly depthy and emotional character. I have never seen Nicholson embrace a character like this and take the film goer on such an incredible ride of emotions. This is a Nicholson MUST SEE performance and he should have been praised to no end for this role. It's under rated and his best and he's done some incredible work. The role of Freddie Gale is like this fragile bomb that is falling apart and ready to explode at any moment which is a suspenseful character to say the least. Anjelica Huston brilliantly plays Freddie's ex-wife Mary whom still cares for her ex-husband but has tried to piece her life back together after the death of their daughter. Huston and Nicholson's scenes together are stunning and her character is a showing of grief from a completely different perspective but just as interesting. She is very good in this performance and Golden Globe nominated which is deserved but a sham considering Nicholson was shut out. The incredible David Morse rounds out the main cast as the man who killed their daughter John Booth. Booth has now just been released from prison and must try to fit into society all the while dealing with his own guilt and grief for the murder he committed. He is equally as emotional and depthy as any of the other characters and once again shows another side of grief to the story.

I can't speak enough about the absolute brilliance of this film. It captures pain and emotion like no other film I've ever seen and brilliantly and perfectly shows it from three very different angles and each one just as powerful as the next although we are seeing the story through the eyes of the completely devastated and angry Freddy Gale. The tone of the film is so depressing and brings you through such a range of emotions it's almost hard to bear. I definitely don't recommend this film to anyone who has lost someone recently because it's a tough film to watch but important and so powerful. An absolute classic that is not treated like one...a rare and stunning piece of cinema. 10/10

Sean Penn directs Jack Nicholson in this story of a man who swears to avenge his daughter's death by killing the drunk driver who struck her.

The movie opens up with Nicholson's character being a sleazy guy in a strip club and instantly we don't care very much about him, because he treats everyone like crap and doesn't really seem to have much depth. I'm all for unlikeable characters, but not when they're totally unredeemable and of no interest to the audience.

The rest of the plot seems very back-and-forth..."I'm going to kill him!" "Wait, I can't kill him." "I'm going to kill him!" "But I shouldn't kill him." When he finally makes up his mind the movie has already lost a lot of its momentum and derails way too early.

"The Crossing Guard" is a film that earned back one tenth of its cost...and although it's possible it's still a good movie, such a statistic pretty much says the picture was bad...really bad. And, this is a case where the earnings clearly WERE an indication that the film really wasn't well made, which is amazing considering it stars Jack Nicholson.

The story is about the release of a man from prison after he served a sentence for vehicular homicide while he was driving drunk. The murdered child's father (Nicholson) has planned on murdering the ex-con when he's released.

While the idea of the film could have worked well, there are just so many problems which make the movie a chore to even finish, especially because the more you watch the worse it gets. And, when I say bad.... I mean monumentally bad, offensive and really dumb.

The first problem is that the dead girl's father (Nicholson) is shown as a thoroughly unlikable jerk. To illustrate that, there are many scenes of the guy going to strip clubs (which seemed VERY gratuitous) and really muddles the plot. He also gets into fights, slaps around his ex-wife and is about only relatable if you are Atilla the Hun!

In contrast, the drunk killer is shown is a completely different light. He feels bad about what he's done....bad, bad, bad. Now he doesn't do anything to actually HELP anyone (such as working to help victims or volunteering to help the disadvantaged)...but he REALLY feels bad about what he's done. I did NOT find this endearing....but a bit annoying.

And then there's the end...which goes on and on and on. First, it really makes no sense. It begins with Nicholson's character pulling a gun on the ex-con...and the con points a rifle in return. So what does the ex-con do? He DROPS his rifle and runs! And, you then are treated to what seems like a mini-marathon with Nicholson chasing him all over town. Nicholson never seemed like the athletic type, but here it's just ridiculous given his age (58). But the worst is the final confrontation scene...which just HAPPENS to be on the grave of the dead child!! Subtle, it is not!!

Overall, a horribly written and directed picture (both by Sean Penn). Penn is a fine actor, but here he clearly appears out of his league....and the film is interminably dull, badly constructed and ridiculous.