The Guilty

Summary:

Joe Baylor is a 911 operator who receives multiple calls throughout his shift. For most of them, he doesn’t give them a second thought until one call comes in about an abducted woman. From there, Joe follows the clues to solve what happened and bring this woman back to her daughter.

Characters:

Joe Baylor is a 911 operator who takes multiple calls. He is the father to Paige and is separated from his wife Jess. Joe has asthma and has anger issues. His police partner is Rick, and his sergeant is Bill.

Is it Worth Watching The Guilty?

The Guilty features a compelling story that will keep you on your toes. With a ton of suspense and a character driven plot, you will enjoy watching this movie if you enjoy those kinds of aspects. The Guilty is worth the watching to see these character interactions.

Sebastian: 8.5/10

Review:

I went into this film with a mindset that I would be bored, which I know is a bad mindset to have but I have to say that this film quickly became intriguing and I became invested quite soon. What really is fascinating about this film is that we only see about 3 other real people in the film besides Joe, our protagonist, everyone else we only hear over the phone. I have to give props to the actors giving their performances as only audio which I know is not a new concept but I think it was done well here. Joe played by Jake Gyllenhaal is a compelling character with traits like a short temper and some form of anxiety. It was interesting to see how the stress of the situation overcame him. I also have to say that the film does a good job of building and maintaining tension throughout keeping me on the edge of my seat. The story itself is interesting with quite a few twists that I didn’t see coming and I like the way the film is wrapped up.

All in all, I know this was a short review but there was not a lot to say other than I think this is a good film with some good drama and tension. I recommend this for sure and if you’re in the mood for a different kind of cop drama, hop on Netflix and take a peek.

Favourite Moment (Spoilers):

My favourite moment is the reveal that Emily is a mental patient who harmed her son but didn’t realize it. This was my favourite as that was the biggest and most unexpected twist in the film.

Austin: 8.3/10

Review:

The Guilty is one of the simplest movies I have seen, yet it is surprisingly complex. The cast is sooo small, and this was a really cheap movie to make. The idea behind the movie, with it all taking place in one location, has been done before, but nothing like this. The movie keeps pretty much everything hidden until the very last minute, and it kept me on the edge of my seat. I really enjoyed our main characters, Joe and Emily. We follow Joe throughout the movie, but the only things we know about Emily are learnt over the phone. There is not omnipotent narrator, everything we know is known by Joe. It does make developing other characters quite tricky, but I thought it was masterfully done here. There are a couple other awesome things that happen because of this restricted view that I don’t wanna talk about for spoilers sake, but I loved it. The start is a little bit slow, but I thought the pacing of the movie as a whole was really solid. The twists and turns this movie experiences is next level, and the ending really caught me off guard. While I thought it was necessary, I didn’t really enjoy the lack of anything happening for half of the movie. It was a must for character development and for making the ending jump, but I like my movies to have a little bit more jump to them.

All in all, this is a pretty solid movie. It isn’t anything spectacular but for a one location film that had a really short cast list and developed at least 3 solid characters over the phone, it’s pretty cool. Netflix, welcome back to the side of decent movies.  

Favourite Moment (Spoilers):

My Favourite moment has to be the big reveal about Emily killing her son. Hands down the highlight, I never saw it coming, and it really changed the way I saw this movie. 

Nathanyal: 8.0/10

Review:

The Guilty was a good movie with a tough beginning, but a great second half. It’s an enjoyable movie that features all the action following a 911 operator while the rest of the action is described through words alone.

On the side of negative, the only thing I didn’t enjoy was that some of the scenes felt quite slow. Near the beginning and during some of the down time between scenes, it was hard to watch the movie when nothing was happening, and the scene wasn’t changing. During these times I found myself distracted by other aspects.

The best part of the movie was the characters, suspense, foreshadow, and the ending. I really enjoyed the suspense following the mystery of the abducted woman and I really liked the amount of foreshadow the movie was able to create while most of the action was done through dialogue. Besides that aspect, I really enjoyed the second half of The Guilty. Watching everything come together and culminating towards the ending was satisfying. It paid off all the waiting you had to get there. As a final note, I also enjoyed the character of Joe, and how this movie relates to the title. I won’t get into more, since that is quite a spoiler.Overall, The Guilty was a good movie. With a slower start, it took a while to get going, but once some of the reveals came out, I was hooked. Give this one a shot for a unique movie watching experience.

Favourite Moment (Spoilers):

My favourite moment in The Guilty was the reveal of Emily harming her son, Oliver. I really enjoyed learning about the twist in the plot and after that reveal, the movie moved along so much faster.