SECOND CHANCE AT REDEMPTION
Netflix’s The Guilty is a riveting remake of Gustav Möller’s acclaimed 2018 Danish crime thriller that uses one movie set in a single location but still keeps us engaged, thanks in part to a gallant performance by Jake Gyllenhaal who plays Joe Baylor, an imploding personality with a crocked past.
The movie follows Baylor, a demoted Los Angeles Police Department officer who has been reassigned to a 911 call dispatch desk. Emotionally distraught while sick with asthma, the man is a walking time bomb. His grouchiness manifests in his disinterested, almost mocking approach to callers. However, that suddenly changes when he receives an emergency phone call from a kidnapped woman. He has a change of heart and decides to take matters into his own hands.
From then on, we see the film sway to the rhythms of the erratic Baylor, complete with mood swings and emotional meltdowns. Unlike the original character who was more emotionally restrained, the protagonist here imbues a more combustible portrait of mental breakdown and rightfully so as he has lost a grip on everything in his life that held meaning. He channels this pent-up distress into the search for the woman.
We see him make an about-turn as his on-the-job instinct clicks into gear. Baylor immerses himself in the role of a guardian after deciding that not only has the woman been kidnapped but that her abductor is armed. What ensues is a cat-and-mouse game, directed entirely over the phone, as he frantically attempts to solve the crime. As time is of the essence, we see him grapple to find leads to break the case while simultaneously watching his family fall apart.
However “complex” the audience believes Baylor is, ultimately, he’s still the main character and the only individual whose perspective defines the whole movie. He is a rogue police officer who may have murdered someone but we have no knowledge about the victim or what led to the killing.
Instead, all we see is a perturbed man trying to save a woman’s life, presumably desperate to compensate for taking someone else’s. Instead of the pain of the family of the man he killed, we see Baylor, experiencing an emotional meltdown on the bathroom floor, physically and emotionally consumed with guilt and obvious shame.
Like most one-location thrillers, The Guilty keeps its audience on the edge of their seats as it doles out bits and pieces of information as the movie progresses. It does a good job at throwing viewers off track as they follow the twists and turns in the plot.
But the script is not without its glitches though. For one, the plot and themes aren’t consistent and this makes it difficult for it to fall into place with ease. An abrupt conclusion, strewn with multiple plotholes, leaves the audience with a fairly predictable end.
Hands down, it is Gyllenhaal’s fiercely committed performance that makes this film worth the watch. It was reported that the remake of the film was his brainchild. He commissioned it after watching the Danish original as if he had a premonition that he could pull off a remake. And indeed, the performance of a talented actor ensures the audience is glued to the screen even when the plot gets tangled.
If there is one takeaway from The Guilty, it is found in the dialogue “broken people save broken people”, said to Baylor by a fellow police officer at the end of an extremely emotional ordeal.
This pretty much resonates with the hope that despite one’s checkered history, people have a choice to right a wrong and sometimes that comes in the form of helping a person in despair.