We should not immediately shrug off American remakes of foreign language films; it's nice to give every movie a chance. But "The Guilty" is so stuck on recreating the big tense beats from the original that it's very hard to watch this sort of thing and not think, "I'd rather be watching the original." Further adding to that is the fact that Fuqua never seems entirely comfortable with the one-location setting. He's an action filmmaker, and he will occasionally cut away from the call center to show blurry shots of cars on highways.
Gyllenhaal is the center of everything here and rivets viewer attention as his character desperately, with decreasing success, tries to cover his tracks.
In the end, The Guilty is not a pleasant sit but it does move with force and speed and accomplishes what it sets out to do with a sense of style and purpose.
Gyllenhaal is the center of everything here and rivets viewer attention as his character desperately, with decreasing success, tries to cover his tracks.
In the end, The Guilty is not a pleasant sit but it does move with force and speed and accomplishes what it sets out to do with a sense of style and purpose.