The Guilty Reviews

I wasn’t really sure what to expect from this flick but since it was starring Jake Gyllenhaal and since it was available on Netflix, I was quite eager to check it out. To be honest, it’s only later on that I discovered that it was actually a remake of a Danish film which I haven’t seen. As a result, there is a fair chance that the damned thing was another useless Hollywood remake of a perfectly fine foreign feature. Still, I have been working in various helpdesks for most of my adult life and it is always pretty neat to see a movie dealing with a 911 dispatch call center which must be by far the most difficult and stressful helpdesk you can work for. Furthermore, I always had a weak spot for such minimalist movie taking place in one location with only a handful characters (that this movie was shot during the Corona pandemic was pretty obvious). Finally, i turned out to be another impressive one-man-show from Jake Gyllenhaal who really had to carry the whole thing on his shoulders. So, I was definitely a decent watch but, to be honest, not much more than that though. Indeed, even though I figured out fairly early on that there was something fishy about Emily, the whole plot around her 911 call was not bad at all. No, what bothered more was that, even though Gyllenhaal gave another strong and intense performance, his character didn’t really make much sense. I mean, for starters, I don’t think they would give such a stressful job to someone who was clearly psychologically seriously distressed. The argument provided was that he was a demoted police officer who got this detail as some kind of ‘punishment’ but it was not really convincing as this job requires someone really dedicated and completely focused. Then, I thought it was very unlikely that if this guy would completely loose his cool while on duty and that no supervisor would intervene and tell him at first to chill and then to go home if it would escalate like it did during this movie. Seriously, it was rather weird and even downright ridiculous that the main character would go apeshit like that and that nobody would do anything about it. Anyway, to conclude, even if it wasn’t really flawless, it was still fairly entertaining though and I think it is worth a look, at least, if you like the genre.