By: Lana K. Wilson-Combs
“The Guilty” is a remake of a 2018 Danish film of the same name that was nominated for “Best Foreign Language” film at the 91st Academy Awards.
While I didn’t see that one, I wasn’t about to let this reimagined version from director
Antoine Fuqua (“The Equalizer 2”) slip by me.
In “The Guilty”
Jake Gyllenhaal gives another fierce performance that’s as riveting and committed as anything he’s done from “Nightcrawler” to “Prisoners.”
Gyllenhaal plays a disgraced cop in Los Angeles named Joe Baylor who has been demoted and tasked with working as a 911 dispatch operator pending his upcoming court case.
He hates the job and is counting the days until he’ll be back on the streets. In the meantime, he must deal with a rash of calls into the dispatch center that mainly revolve around prostitutes, drunk drivers and people trying to reach the fire department since wildfires are raging all over the place. Officer Baylor’s last shift takes a dramatic turn when a young woman (Riley Keough, TV’s “Calls” and “Riverdale”) calls in and tells him she’s been abducted by her estranged and violent husband Henry (Peter Sarsgaard, TV’s “Dopesick”).
Emily becomes more frantic and pleads with Joe to help her. He cleverly manages to get information on her whereabouts. The scenario becomes more intense when Emily tells Joe she has two kids alone at home and fear for their safety.
The victim gets under Joe’s skin. Throughout the ordeal he becomes less of a jerk and more of a sympathetic and even heroic policeman. He’s willing to break the rules to ensure this all ends well for Emily.
Yet, there’s a twist in “The Guilty” that you may or may not see coming. That’s because you’ll likely be so fixated on Gyllenhaal’s manic one man show. Although “The Guilty” features an impressive cast that includes Ethan Hawke (TV’s “United We Fall”), Eli Goree (“One Night in Miami”), DaVine Joy Randolph (“Dolemite Is My Name”) and Paul Dano (TV’s “The Great Work Begins. Scenes from Angels in America”), they’re all offscreen. You can only hear their voices when Gyllenhaal is speaking to them by phone.
Still, “The Guilty” is a stylish, nail-biting thriller from beginning to end and a great platform for Gyllenhaal to showcase his acting chops. It arrives in theaters--limited release--this weekend and bows on Netflix Oct. 1.
Editor's Note: Be sure to catch my N2Entertainment.net movie talk segment on the Kitty O'Neal Show Fridays at 6:20 p.m. on radio station KFBK 93.1 FM and 1530 AM.
Watch This Trailer For
"THE GUILTY"
Lana K. Wilson-Combs is a member of the Broadcast Film Critics Association (BFCA), The Black Film Critics Circle (BFCC), The American Film Institute (AFI), and a Nominating Committee Voting Member for the NAACP Image Awards.
