Mark Reviews Movies: THE GUILTY (2021)

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Review by Mark Dujsik | September 23, 2021

The best that can be said of The Guilty is that the filmmakers didn't mess with the source material. There was good reason to fear that they might.

For the unaware, director Antoine Fuqua's film is based on a 2018 one, from Denmark, of the same name. It featured two rooms within a single location, following a man as he makes and receives a series of phone calls that could be matters of life or death.

That was it, but the tension came from the refusal on the part of that film's director, Gustav Möller, to give us even a hint of what was happening on the other end of the telephone. There was no cutting to the events unable to be seen from the isolation of an emergency dispatch center. There wasn't even a glimpse into our protagonist's imagination of what could be occurring, as an abduction plays out in real time.

Watching it, I occasionally worried what a seemingly inevitable American remake would look like. To do the dirty deed of quoting oneself, I wrote: "One almost dreads the possibility of a Hollywood remake of this Danish film while watching it—how some executive would insist that an audience needs to see what's happening in order to understand or be invested in the story."

The strength of the original film mostly remains in Fuqua and screenwriter Nic Pizzolatto's adaptation, which keeps the essential plot and the major twists. More significantly, it retains that vital denial of almost any kind of release from the claustrophobic sense of being helpless to do or even see anything of importance. The times in which Fuqua cheats—a few action-free flashes to matters happening elsewhere—are too brief and inconsequential to merit more than a mention. Considering the alternative, the filmmakers have done exactly what they need to do here.

This, of course, brings us to a more fundamental question: Is a remake that's more or less a direct copy of its source material worthwhile? Should one endorse such a venture, when the original material still exists and is readily available to anyone who's willing to hop over the little obstacle of subtitles. When it comes to that irrelevant rating in stars, is it misleading to suggest that this film is somehow equal to the film it's mimicking? To those questions, one can only shrug.

Fuqua's film is somewhat different, in that it invests a certain geographical and political awareness to its new location. This story is set in modern-day Los Angeles, where a wildfire in the hills is quickly spreading closer and close to the city proper. Giant screens on a wall of the 9-1-1 call center, where the whole of the story unfolds, show us the flames and smoke via news broadcasts. That adds another layer of tension—especially when the resources and emergency personnel our protagonist needs are otherwise occupied with the disaster unfolding.

As for that central character, he's Joe Baylor, a cop with the LAPD, who has been demoted to taking emergency calls, following a mysterious incident that seems obvious—even without the benefit of knowing the source material. Joe is played by Jake Gyllenhaal, whose performance serves as another good reason for this remake's existence.

Fuqua keeps the camera on the actor for the majority of the film, often in tight and confining close-ups, and Gyllenhaal is smart and aware enough as an actor to know how much can be communicated with very little in those shots. His Joe is a man with anger and control issues, which regularly erupt as the pressure and powerlessness of this situation become increasingly frustrating and potentially deadly. Much of the actor's performance, though, is about keeping that vexation and vulnerability in check—or at least trying to do so, which adds a certain layer of suspense in not knowing how far he's willing to take matters.

Keeping those emotions in check is difficult when so much is piling up on Joe, as his shift at the call center is about to end—on the last day he might be working there. We learn he's currently separated from his wife (and that no one else knows it, adding to the pressure) and wants to talk to his daughter. A call to his commanding officer (voiced by Ethan Hawke) references a courtroom appearance the next day, when Joe's fate in that unspoken-until-later incident will be decided.

Most of the plot, though, revolves around a call from a woman named Emily (voice of Riley Keough), who calls 9-1-1 and pretends to be talking to her child. Joe quickly picks up on the ruse and its meaning: She has been abducted by her husband Henry (voice of Peter Sarsgaard), who may or may not have a knife.

Joe gets as much information as he can from Emily, asking her simple questions, and goes through the proper procedure of having the cops start a search for her along the freeways of L.A. When that fails and with Emily's two children at home alone, Joe decides he's going to have to go beyond the book, which he perceives as his duty, but the truth of what's happening here changes our perspective of everyone—especially Joe.

For those who haven't seen the original film (You should, if that's the case—and ideally before watching this one), The Guilty stands on its own as a tight and clever thriller, using its restrictions and limited setting to relate a sense of physical and psychological confinement. For those who have seen the source material, we already know that, but the remake is a solid and faithful companion piece.

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