Without offering anything particularly interesting or nuanced, The Guilty still has enough to keep audiences engaged and on the edge of their seats.
The Guilty, director Antoine Fuqua’s latest feature, is one of the many American remakes of international hits that don’t quite get what made the original, a Danish film from director Gustav Möller, so special. Many of these remakes are often of films that have rather precise narratives, with specific events or twists that the audience didn’t see coming the first time, which then gets retold for American audiences. The Guilty is no different. If one were to have never seen the original, then it is a fairly good suspense-filled drama that showcases much of what we like from Fuqua, screenwriter Nic Pizzolatto, and actor Jake Gyllenhaal. Without offering anything particularly interesting or nuanced, The Guilty still has enough to keep audiences engaged and on the edge of their seats.
This story follows Joe Bayler (Jake Gyllenhaal), a police officer tasked with answering emergency calls after an unspecified incident sends him to desk duty. During a particularly stressful shift the day before a trial, he answers a distress call from a woman who claims to have been abducted. What transpires over the next few hours is filled with twists and turns as the officer becomes increasingly obsessed with finding and saving this woman.
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