The Guilty

If you're wondering why there's been some radio silence from me the past week/weekend, it's because I was having some pretty significant life events!

My fiance and I got a new puppy!

And we got married!

So yes, lots of films to catch up on (thank God for stocked up PTO). As a precursor, most of the films I plan on covering in the next couple days will be on the shorter review side. I imagine my No Time to Die review later this week will edge toward something longer so as I catch up with (likely) 4 new reviews before that, I'll have to crank them out. 

Luckily for me (and not so lucky for this film), The Guilty is a movie that would have gotten a short review anyway. 

The new Jake Gyllenhaal thriller, directed by Antoine Fuqua and written (in part) by Nic Pizzolatto came to Netflix this past Friday and the early buzz I'd been hearing + those involved had me interested, hoping it would be an intense thriller that left me on the edge of my seat. 

In some ways, it is, but in many other ways, The Guilty is a misfire. It felt like an awesome, intense concept in theory, but in execution the result is something that's shockingly boring, despite having a pretty dark story and strong central performance from Gyllenhaal. 

The Guilty follows Gyllenhaal's Joe closely as he nearly closes out his shift as a 911 operator in a Los Angeles that's ablaze due to forest fires, constraining resources of first-responders. We quickly get the sense there's a backstory to Joe, but before the film can dive into that, he receives a call from a distressed woman who's been kidnapped. Something about the woman's situation envelops Joe and he needs to go above and beyond to unravel the mystery of her abduction and save her. 

Yep...this is the setting of the entire film

The two main areas where The Guilty deserves praise is - almost obviously - Gyllenhaal's performance. Since he's on screen for 99% of the runtime, he's got to be good and he's excellent, even if Joe isn't all that likable of a character. I was also pretty heavily invested in the story - more about the woman's abduction, less about Joe's history - as there are some twists and turns I didn't see coming. A handful of reveals are powerful, and dark, and keep you interested. 

Otherwise, The Guilty falls surprisingly flat. It's never bad, but it was far more dull than I was expecting, though, to be fair, maybe I'm not sure what I was expecting either when the entire film is in an office building for 911 operators. That brings me back to my point about "in theory" this film would be exciting, but in execution it really does boil down to: Jake Gyllenhaal in an office setting yelling into a headset for 90 minutes. I imagine that a novel version of this story would be an absolute page turner, but as a film, there are more than enough times where the visual aspect is so unnecessary, you could just listen to the audio and get the same experience. 

If you're a Gyllenhaal fan, this one's likely for you, but for most other people, I think they'll grow bored within the first half hour. There's good elements, but it's really hard to ignore the mundane setting and activities of it all. 

CONS

• The whole thing is set in an office without ever shifting gears. For a film, that's not the most exciting setting
• Would translate better in a book than the film. There's rarely a need to actually see the screen 

PROS

• Gyllenhaal provides a strong, very central performance
• The story unravels into some surprising directions and the path in which it unravels keeps you guessing and invested

Rath's Review Score | 6.5/10