Netflix’s new film stars Jake Gyllenhaal as a 9-1-1 call center worker. It seems straightforward — until it’s not.
Streaming Joe definitely didn’t know what he was getting into. Just when you think you have the story figured out, The Guilty takes a sharp left turn on a highway overpass. Jake Gyllenhaal leads what is basically a one-man-show in The Guilty. The new Netflix film is a remake of writer-director Gustav Möller’s 2018 Danish-language movie, Den Skyldige; in the new version, directed by director Antoine Fuqua and written by Nic Pizzolatto, the story is transposed to America, where police brutality is all-too-real for many innocent citizens. Gyllenhaal plays Joe, a suspended cop working at a 9-1-1 call center. Though the story behind his suspension is never fully explained, it’s revealed that he shot and killed a 19-year-old victim while on-duty — it’s heavily hinted that it was without cause. His trial is scheduled for the day after the events of the film. Joe is not good at his new job. He’s curt with — or just straight-up rude to — both his colleagues and the callers patched through to his line.
