The Guilty (2018)

Again, due to lack of time, I chose the shortest option available = "The Guilty", for this week. It's a Danish production that got enough awards around two years ago to make me notice it and check it as "must watch". It's a good movie, but as usual, when the expectancy is high, the final impression is not that good (valid for the opposite too - check my previous blog entry).

The subject in "The Guilty" fits well for a theatrical representation. Asger Holm e is an impulsive police officer, under investigation for killing a suspect during an intervention, and temporarily sent to a desk job as an operator for emergency calls. The entire development of the movie is basically built on that: phone calls. The first couple have a role to define an initial profile of the character we have in front of us, in brief: a guy who seems well-intended but a bit too much self-confident. Afterwards, we're getting into the main story - Iben, mother of two children, claims to be abducted, apparently by her ex-husband after a violent conflict in front of their kids. It's the first call that seems important enough to Asger to catch his full attention.

The whole impact of "The Guilty" is based on the case evolving with each call that brings new elements in the story. I already advanced a bit too much with the info there, to even give some hint that twists are present. I'd just say more that in the end it's easy to draw some conclusion on the main subject of the movie, which is actually on the other side of the phone compared to what you might think it the beginning. Precisely, the movie is less about Iben, and more about Asger, ending as a characterization that evolves from the start profile to a morale saying that following your first impulse is not the best option. Well, that's debatable... or at least to me the movie seemed a bit one-sided on this, which can be discussed if you remove the context (despite the fact that in general I'd agree with the idea).

Anyway, to slowly move towards conclusion, there are a couple more things to mention. For a movie that lasts below 90 minutes, out of which most are audio phone calls, we have something that's a bit weird... it's both impressive how much it can get from the sound effects, but I can't get over some parts where the sound editing gets sloppy. That's valid also for the realism of the script, which in might make it hard to watch as drama intensity, but at a certain point it's getting a bit exaggerated in regard to what you could do undisturbed in an emergency calls office, where you're not the only operator. So, I'll stick to the opinion that the movie is ok, but it could've been better.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5