Fest Track On Sirk TV Film Review: THE GUILTY [Toronto International Film Festival 2021 - Virtual]

The texture of perception can be done in different ways but creating tension in a single space through the hearing of outside stimuli is a true gift on screen if can be done with precision and emotional resonance. After the bloated structure of "Infinite", there might have been a case where director Antoine Fuqua was losing his touch that he had focused with films like "Training Day". Thankfully 'The Guilty", his new film with Netflix, is a stripped-down thriller that almost solely relies on its leading man in Jake Gyllenhaal to make the story work. What he accomplishes is hardly ever done well or even attempted but it gives the impression of a novel, especially if you know the Los Angeles freeway system. What Fuqua and Gyllenhaal do is take a script where all the action is off screen over the phone. What this does is have the viewer create imagery in their own head as they are watching the film. Granted this kind of approach was likely exacerbated by COVID but, in this instance, the restriction created a interesting side effect with the audience which is hardly ever done. This couldn't really be done on-state...but possibly.

The cool thing is just because you can show something doesn't mean you have to show it...and this film is all done through conversations while still building Gyllenhaal's character who is undergoing crises of his own that are coming to a boil. What is fantastic is that you also don't know the actors who are playing the people on the phone...and it is not who you think is...and one wouldn't know until the credits roll. The basis of the story that should be known is that Gyllenhaal is a former cop restricted to the 911 call center while he awaits a trial in the morning for a event that had happened. Granted the fact that he isn't under suspension and still working is a little after the fact but doesn't enter in the initial viewing. Gyllenhaal plays Joe with a simmering anger than moves in both directions without going too over the top. The same can be said of the primary emergency and the the different members of a certain family he interacts with via the phone going from whispers to despair but through different lenses. The unfurling of perception and perspective, especially in how people are ultimately suffering, is wonderfully done because his character simply wants to do good. Things however keep unravelling around him because he gets too involved when the machine itself as a society needs to work in a certain way. It is a tricky and effective psychological tightening if it is done right and this film does. It is tightly edited and structured with a steady hand by Fuqua and a powerful performance by Gyllenhaal that walks deftly between drama and thriller, realism and entertainment. A-

By Tim Wassberg