The Guilty (2021)
“Fuck me? Fuck me? No... FUCK YOU!” – Joe.
The Guilty (2021)
Directed by: Antoine Fuqua
Written by: Nick Pizzolatto
Starring: Jake Gyllenhaal, Ethan Hawke, Paul Dano, Riley Keogh, Bill Burr, Peter Saarsgaard
I don’t think I’ve watched a film that encapsulates ‘filming during COVID’ better than The Guilty. A remake of the 2018 Danish film of the same name, this is very much the ‘Jake Gyllenhaal show,’ as he is practically the only on-screen actor for 90 minutes, with all the other characters being heard and not seen. Luckily Gyllenhaal has the prestigious talent to anchor this sort of film, but I still had a few narrative issues.
The film focuses on Joe Baylor (Gyllenhaal), a troubled cop who has been relegated to working at a police dispatch centre, where he takes 911 calls from LA residents. During his night shift he receives a call from Emily (Keogh), a woman who claims she has just been abducted. Thus begins a race against time, as Joe tries to piece together the clues to find Emily before it’s too late.
To be completely transparent, I haven’t seen the original Danish version of this film, and by all accounts it’s WAYYYYY better than this. But…I still thought this was a pretty fun movie.
To start, we have to talk about the bland setting. The ENTIRE FILM takes place inside the call centre, with at least two-thirds of it featuring Gyllenhaal alone in a boring office room. Therefore the marketing is a little bit misleading – every trailer made sure to repeat Jake’s name 47093048 times, which is understandable, but they also claimed “By the same director as Training Day.” While this is accurate - Antoine Fuqua DID direct Training Day - it’s a completely different film, with regular location changes and plenty of action. By contrast The Guilty is a dialogue-heavy psychological thriller, with most of the visuals involving cinematic close ups of Glylenhaal’s face.
Now, some people might hate this one-location setting and think it’s boring. I’m sure that a lot of the audiences will complain that the marketing doesn’t represent the film, and they’d be right. BUT…Gylenhaal is so fucking good in this. His performance draws you into the story, and the fact that he’s playing quite an unhinged and complicated authority figure also makes this a pretty interesting morality study. I found myself invested in the fate of Emily, and kept watching to find out if she would survive. There’s also a good twist that I wasn’t expecting, so thumbs up to the script.
However, the entire movie after the twist could have been completely cut out. It didn’t advance the story, seemed like a weak attempt to add some character development for Joe, and as a result felt really clunky. Any of the ‘thrilling’ elements of the movie therefore just bleed out over the final twenty minutes, with a boring subplot dulling what was a pretty cool first hour.
It’s luckily not a very long film, so it’s still easy to digest, and Jake Gyllenhaal remains must-watch talent, but this was far from flawless. It had the bones of a really creative thriller, using the limitations of COVID filming to build suspense using mainly audio, but the final act took me out of the movie. Watch if you love Gyllenhaal, but otherwise probably watch the Danish version.
Rating: 6.5/10