SummaryWhen police officer Asger Holm (Jakob Cedergren) is demoted to desk work, he expects a sleepy beat as an emergency dispatcher. That all changes when he answers a panicked phone call from a kidnapped woman who then disconnects abruptly. Asger, confined to the police station, is forced to use others as his eyes and ears as the severity of ...
SummaryWhen police officer Asger Holm (Jakob Cedergren) is demoted to desk work, he expects a sleepy beat as an emergency dispatcher. That all changes when he answers a panicked phone call from a kidnapped woman who then disconnects abruptly. Asger, confined to the police station, is forced to use others as his eyes and ears as the severity of ...
The film’s narrow visual focus – much of the drama plays out in the face of police officer Asger Holm (Jakob Cedergren) – accentuates the crackling cleverness of a screenplay that allows us to unravel a mystery in real time.
If the setting of The Guilty couldn’t be simpler, its immaculate execution by first-time director Gustav Möller couldn’t be more gripping and involving.
Actually, the story is quite interesting and could be the base for a good film. However, the movie itself if very boring. Very passive and 99% dark scenes.
This is the best drama I've seen in years! It follows the classic Greek rule of unity in action, place, and time -- a single character and some voice actors, in a confined area, in real time, lasting a bit more than an hour. The authors mercilessly toy with your assumptions and prejudices, and have the courage to leave you a bit up in the air at the end. Not to give it all away, "Who ya gonna call?" is the question. The ghost of Sigmund Freud hovers over the shoulder of a singularly satisfying dramatic performance.
A brilliant genre exercise, a cinematic study in tension, sound design, and how to make a thrilling movie with a limited tool box. The film’s own restrictions actually amplify the tension, forcing us into the confined space of its protagonist.
The Guilty beautifully demonstrates how people can act with absolute conviction even when they don’t have the full picture of a situation, and the monstrousness this can in turn lead to. And if that doesn’t speak to our time, then I don’t know what does.
It might not be the kind of movie that anyone needs to see twice, but its variations on the classic building blocks of suspense implicate our own guesswork in interesting ways.
The Guilty is many things, not all of which work 100-percent of the time. But it does succeed as one hell of a radio play with benefits, letting a literal call-and-response crime procedural play out in real time.
This is the most gripping movie I've seen in years. The filmmaking and the lead (and only) actor is stunning. See it before they ruin it with an American remake.
in a way I must make a spoiler about the story of this film because of the way in which is narrated.
This film is entirely centered on the main character: Asger Holm. The whole film is located in the same place: A police switchboard that receives emergency calls.
The film never changes the scenario and everything is told with the main character through calls he is making to resolve what is initially a kidnapping, then a murder and then I'll just say a very interesting narrative twist that is conducted with a second narrative that involves the same character and that eventually gives meaning to the title and its resolution.
The film is quite tense and quite entertaining. It only lasts 85 minutes and honestly considering its narrative resource it's very functional.
I do recommend it.
A la manière d’un certain Searching qui se déroulait entièrement à partir d’un ordinateur, The Guilty se passe intégralement à partir d’un téléphone : c’est donc le film à distance, le télé-film !… même si on a eu droit en remontant plus loin à un certain Phone Game… bien entendu !
En tout cas, ça fonctionne plutôt pas mal ici pour ce huis-clos fort intrigant qui suit le gars aux urgences téléphoniques, cette sorte de « Police Secours » comme on appelait ça dans le temps, du temps où les flics ne se faisaient pas caillasser par la racaille, bien sûr (mais gare, je m’égare, Garry, je me gare près de la gare et j’arrive).
Bref, voilà le gars qui doit faire ce qu’il peut alors qu’il a au bout du fil une femme apeurée enlevée par son mari, ex-taulard violent de son état. Evidemment, ça pourrait être largement une pièce de théâtre qui se suffirait à elle-même avec un risque d’ennui plus ou moins alarmant mais contre toute attente, ça reste tout à fait intéressant.
Le problème tout de même, c’est d’abord quelques détails qui peuvent chiffonner mais surtout le pathos omniprésent et de plus en plus envahissant qui nuit beaucoup à la crédibilité, d’autant que gars du téléphone a aussi son pathos à lui qui vient en remettre une couche ici et là, alors que la guimauve à deux balles déborde déjà à n’en plus pouvoir.
En outre, lorsqu’on apprend le principal rebondissement (impardonnable) de l’affaire, puis plus **** la fin elle-même, on constate un côté bisounours et autoflagellatoire avec en prime une volonté de pseudo-rédemption à deux centimes par dessus le marché ! ça commence donc à faire beaucoup dans la lourdeur, quand même.
En conséquence de quoi, ce film apparemment très prometteur loupe sensiblement le coche… et son sujet malgré d’indéniables bonnes idées.
I was expecting good things with The Guilty based on the reviews so far, but was disappointed. It feels very much like a straight-to-TV film, with all that goes with i.e. average acting and an average story. Although not strictly a single character film, I've seen others that are far better e.g. Locke, and Buried.