The Guilty - Movie Review

Critics Score - 8 of 10

General Audience Score - 8 of 10

The anxiety inducing lifestyle that police lead, the life threatening, homicidal maniac chasing,

detective work sleuthing, constantly putting themselves in harm’s way is what make police dramas about as common a film premise as they come. What’s not so common is the contained police film, as they usually involve a bunch of running around to interview witnesses, general crime solving work or the action packed, gun pulling and suspect chasing more dangerous aspects of the job. The new Jake Gyllenhaal film to debut on Netflix, The Guilty, is an almost duplicate remake of a fantastic Danish language firm of the same name from 2018. But the film is able to do so much with so little, the pace and momentum of the hour and a half movie is incredible, despite everything we see in the film taking place in just a couple rooms inside a 911 emergency response call center. Even if the film isn’t completely original, odds are good you haven’t seen the Danish version, but if you’re looking to convict a film for being soild, with a fantastic central performance and riveting drama, look no further. The Guilty is guilty as charged. Don’t blame me, you saw it coming and kept reading.

SYNOPSIS - This frantic phone conversation starts with a shot of helicopters flying over Los Angeles and clips of 911 call conversations playing in the background with people reporting fires burning in their vicinity and crimes happening. We then meet Joe Taylor (Jake Gyllenhaal) in the bathroom at his job, wearing a black shirt that’s at least one size too small and hitting an inhaler before heading back to his desk. Before long we get a taste of his routine of taking calls, rerouting some to various service professionals and even getting snippy and sarcastic with some of the people calling in that may not be, let’s just say, using emergency services for things clearly an emergency. But after a bit he’s calling his wife to say he wants to say goodnight to his daughter and we start to clue in that this dude is carrying some baggage but what it is and what’s going on is revealed expertly over the course of the film, woven in by the fantastic screenplay. But then the inevitable call comes in, a woman named Emily is speaking a little off and Joe figures out something is wrong on the other end of the line. She can’t answer his direct questions and from the point Joe asks, “Does the person you’re with know you called us?” the film grabs you, smashes the pedal onto the floor and doesn’t let off until the credits roll.

Once the cell reception gets interrupted and Joe stands up and walks around repeating, “Can you hear me now?”, we’ve hit about as many twists and turns an audience can handle in an hour and a half. The film’s core revolves around it’s screenplay, it’s one that college professors should use to teach students about good story writing and character arcs. The dialogue is also quick and along with the rest of the film, sustains an incredible pace and level of interest. The other actors and performances aren’t even worth mentioning, this is a one man show and Jake kills it. It may not be a Nightcrawler level performance, but he’s damn good. The film doesn’t get into any deep subject matter and stays singularly focused on it’s main objective, maybe to a fault, but it does comment briefly on unnecessary police violence. But there’s little to no flare anywhere else, no score, no cinematography, just randomly changing camera angles, no supporting actors to elevate this film to a superb piece of cinema.

SUMMARY - This movie is a fantastic example of how a great story that’s constructed well can do wonders to the film’s overall cinematic enjoyment, even if it isn’t one of the years best or getting Gyllenhall an acting nomination. It’s as tight as Jake’s shirts, focused, highly entertaining and more easily accessible to mainstream audiences than it’s foreign counterpart. The Guilty is a great time at the movies next time you want to catch a quick flick on Netflix, guilt free.