Delayed Reaction: The Guilty

Premise: Jake Gyllenhaal is a 911 dispatcher who gets too involved in a specific call.

 

I'm a sucker for this kind of movie. All of it takes place at the 911 call center from Jake Gyllenhaal’s perspective. Mostly, it's watching him talk to people on the phone. That kind of claustrophobic thriller almost always works for me: Locke, Buried, Phone Booth. If the story and characters are interesting enough, I'm happy to sign on. Even without that gimmick, I like movies that expand then contract the narrative around a complicated situation (think, Eye in the Sky). And Jake Gyllenhaal is on my shortlist of favorite actors. He's not infallible, but when he's on (Nightcrawler), he's great.

 

I didn't connect with this movie as much as I thought I would though. It felt more tense than busy, and the more I learned about Gyllenhaal's character actually made him harder to relate to. The mechanics of the emergency with the mother who he thinks is in danger are great. I love following the series of calls he makes trying to locate the car and learn more. It makes me appreciate the people doing that job more.

 

The twist is gutting. However, I can't shake the feeling that they aren't playing fair with it. It's probably just me being salty for being tricked. I think some of it ties to not knowing what Gyllenhaal is in trouble for. As we find out, his guilt over killing a young man while on the job drove his decision to continue so hard with this call. It's his chance for redemption in his mind. I think understanding his motivations more would help the tension. Because that's the other problem I had with the movie. It felt more busy than tense. The reason why something like Locke works so well is because it feels like Tom Hardy is trying to keep several plates spinning at the same time. All have priority and urgency in their own way. In The Guilty, only one thing is actually urgent. The calls from reporters are annoying. His attempts to speak to his daughter are his attempt to escape, not an added complication. With the mother he is trying to help, the complications are because he's trying to break protocol, not because he's actually doing much to help. The fact that that falls apart fundamentally changes the kind of movie I thought I was watching. Instead of being "competency porn"*, it's about a guy who is effective but bad at this job. He's bad at his last job. He's bad at his family life. He's kind of a dick to people. It made me less engaged the more I learned. It's a slow-moving train wreck story, but it deprived us of the buildup to the crash. The aftermath of a slow-moving train wreck may be bad, but seeing it happen and knowing you can't stop it is was makes it so tense. Just imagine if we knew early on that he's feeling guilty over shooting the young man. What if there were more warning signs that something's not right with the mother? How tense would it be if there was a pause every couple minutes for us to decide whether he was pushing so hard because of guilt or because it's the right thing to do?

 

*Another term I've heard for movie about people doing their damn jobs well.

 

Verdict: Weakly Don't Recommend