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Every day, emergency dispatchers man the phones under a variety of high-pressure situations, working with scared, frantic, panicked callers and getting them the help they need as quickly as possible. In The Guilty, when a dispatcher is connected with a troubled woman, he finds himself breaking the rules to try to keep her safe.
The Guilty stars Jake Gyllenhaal as Joe Baylor, a disgraced LAPD officer who’s working the 911 dispatch desk while he waits for his hearing. One night, he takes a call from a woman named Emily (voiced by Riley Keough) who says that she’s been kidnapped. Joe races to try to find her, becoming more desperate after he takes a call from her young daughter, who’s been left home alone with her baby brother. And as he reaches out to his contacts and calls in favors, he far oversteps his role and risks getting himself in even more trouble in an attempt to save this woman and her children.
As the action plays out in real time, Joe makes one frantic phone call after another, reaching out to a series of faceless characters—and, for viewers, trying to figure out their identities adds another layer of entertainment to the movie watching experience.
Really, this remake of a 2018 Danish thriller makes perfect sense for COVID filmmaking. The cast is stripped down. Most of the performances are voice-only. And the action takes place in just two rooms. Acting alone with costars on the phone is definitely a challenge for any actor, but Jake Gyllenhaal knows his way around drama and suspense, and he manages to give a solid performance, demonstrating the character’s increasing desperation to save Emily and get her back to her kids in spite of the challenges.
There’s definitely no shortage of tension here. Working in 911 dispatching means spending long, exhausting shifts dealing with people who may be afraid or in pain or just generally on edge. It’s a stressful job—one that often requires dispatchers to think and act quickly. But while the tension of the situation is completely understandable, Joe’s attachment to this case doesn’t always make sense. Even as we get to know a little more about him, his desperation to save Emily is dubious. Despite Joe’s history—which isn’t revealed until the end of the film—the emotional connection isn’t really there. And that makes it a challenge to connect to the story.
The Guilty tells a tense story of a family in danger—and the troubled cop who fights to help. But in focusing on building the action, the storytelling falls short. It’s a good watch for Jake Gyllenhaal fans, but the story feels disconnected.
Listen to the review on Reel Discovery:
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