PLOT: A disgraced cop (Jake Gyllenhaal) working as a 911 dispatch officer receives a phone call from an abducted woman. Without much to go on, he tries to help her escape over the phone while dealing with his own personal demons.
REVIEW: Antoine Fuqua‘s The Guilty is an adaptation of the Danish hit film of the same name. The premise is essentially the same, in that Gyllenhaal is a cop who’s been taken off the streets due to a pending court case. The case’s factors become apparent as the movie goes on, but suffice to say he’s on thin ice, with being a dispatcher for 911 the last move he can make before his day in court, which is actually supposed to be the day after this all goes down.
He despises his new gig, which he sees as a step-down. He spends his shift having to send help for johns who’ve been roughed up by hookers, drunk cyclists, and mostly rerouting calls to the fire department, with this taking place with the California Wildfires as a backdrop. However, he suddenly starts to feel like a cop again when a young woman (Riley Keough) calls, saying she’s been abducted by her estranged ex-con husband (Peter Sarsgaard).
The film unspools in real-time, with it taking place during the tail-end of Gyllenhaal’s last shift in the call center (and beyond). Notably, this is nearly a solo film for Gyllenhaal, with only minor roles for the other folks that work with him in the call center. The movie boasts a massive ensemble cast, which, in addition to Sarsgaard and Keough, includes Ethan Hawke, Da’Vine Joy Randolph, Paul Dano, Eli Goree and more. You never actually see any of them. You only hear their voices as Gyllenhaal’s interactions with them are limited to the phone.
It all adds up to a pretty compelling thriller. I’ve never seen the Danish film, so I can’t compare them. However, Gyllenhaal delivers a powerhouse performance here as the tortured lead. Brusque to those who call in, rude to his colleagues, and acting like he’s above everyone, it’s not hard to believe he was a brutal, bullying cop. Yet, he’s also empathetic to some extent and wants to help the abducted woman and her family, even willing to risk the only currency he has left in the department by breaking the rules. It’s a character that lives in the gray area newer movies are often too afraid to explore, and kudos to Netflix for allowing Fuqua and Gyllenhaal to take a chance with the shadier character.
The dialogue by Nic Pizzolatto is more naturalistic than you’d expect given his True Detective pedigree. He knows the milieu well, and Gyllenhaal’s exchanges with his superiors (one played by Hawke) and partner (Goree) feel authentic and not overly stylized. For the look of the film, Fuqua keeps the camera poised on Gyllenhaal at all times, going in so close that you can almost feel the actor’s breath on the screen. A single-character movie is often hard to make visually dynamic, but Fuqua and his DP Max Makhani pull it off. The sparse score by Marcelo Zarvos is solid too, even if it’s meant to be unobtrusive by design.
Running a tight ninety minutes, The Guilty is a must-watch once it hits Netflix on October 1st. The sometimes claustrophobic setting should play well on the small screen, and anyone who considers themselves a fan of Fuqua or Gyllenhaal needs to check this out. Both of them are operating at the top of their game here.