SIMP FACTS:
- FEELS LIKE YOU’RE WATCHING A PARODY.
- Â FILLED WITH PLOT HOLES.
- Â THE PREMISE IS FUN, BUT GETS WASTED..
The Guilty’s premise, a thriller starring Jake Gyllenhaal as a a 911 operator, is certainly intriguing, but you’ll quickly find this Netflix Original commits a serious case of entrapment.
After hooking you in with its novel concept and A-list lead actor, The Guilty starts to show its true character, which comes in the form of bad writing, directing and acting.
Gyllenhaal plays Joe, an LAPD call center operator who appears both slightly on-edge and slightly aloof, in some ways that prove to compliment the story, but most often just as straight up bad acting and filmmaking.
While trying to succeed in the tricky task of telling an intense thriller, largely via off-screen characters speaking on the phone, they accidentally create an uneven mess of nonsense, and you realize this is not the the emergency operator movie you hoped for.
The film often seems stuck between trying to convey a realistic look at the call operator job, and excessively dipping into a nonsensical parody of it.
While its ending leaves you reflecting back on the film as a whole, it doesn’t right any of its flaws, and manages to make things even more absurd.
The Guilty is actually based on a 2018 Danish film of the same name (Den Skyldige) which was praised by critics. So if you find the premise appealing, it might be best to seek that one out and get the old subtitles goin, because this Netflix version ain’t it.