Guilty lacks the seriousness of Pink and Section 375. A college student tags her college mate in a MeToo post and he files defamation case against her. His girlfriend believes him and the guy's counsel investigates the matter.
It could have turned into a wonderful mystery, if not a powerful film that talks about sexual assaults. But, it turns into a messy attempt by an new filmmaker. Since, it is just a defamation case, all the seriousness that we had in Pink and Section 375 is just missing here.
The college students in this film have nothing to do besides taking drugs and churning out bad songs. Had it been a police investigation, it would have been engaging. A detailed court session is also missing here. What we get instead is a five minute long scene inside a court.
Kiara at last finds out that his boyfriend is indeed guilty and reveals about him during a music fest in the college. Then she goes on to give a monologue rather than let the victim speak. Also, it is clear evident that she is struggling to act. Instead of becoming a superb commentary on sexual assaults and how the victims don't get a chance to speak out, this film becomes a teen drama about kids smoking weed and kissing inside classroom even when the professor is taking lesson.
144 Reviews
Netflix should be accounted GUILTY for making it.
theyuvrajtyagi6 March 2020
Indian movies has basically two stories, like writing an essay, an introduction part and then conclusion part, which is the movie post-interval, unlike hollywood or movies on streaming platforms. It's quite tough for Indian filmmakers to adapt this change.
Here Ruchi Narain, failed to keep the audience engaged throughout. Mid-movie, it all starting to seem like a dragged plain narrative,and she just escalated it with a 'twist' for which the audience is not prepared at all because of the slow pace of the movie.
With all the interrogation scenes in the 'first half' of the film, it looked like there is too much in it to get revealed but Alas!!. All the permutations and combination were cleared already in the first half itself.
This movie tried very hard to be 'Article 375' with the plot similar to 'Judgemental hai kya?' but failed miserably. The only couple of good thing about this movie atr the performances and cinematography. If you're really craving for something refreshing you can pick other titles from the Netflix else this is just one time watch.
Here Ruchi Narain, failed to keep the audience engaged throughout. Mid-movie, it all starting to seem like a dragged plain narrative,and she just escalated it with a 'twist' for which the audience is not prepared at all because of the slow pace of the movie.
With all the interrogation scenes in the 'first half' of the film, it looked like there is too much in it to get revealed but Alas!!. All the permutations and combination were cleared already in the first half itself.
This movie tried very hard to be 'Article 375' with the plot similar to 'Judgemental hai kya?' but failed miserably. The only couple of good thing about this movie atr the performances and cinematography. If you're really craving for something refreshing you can pick other titles from the Netflix else this is just one time watch.
A good premise but with a healthy dollop of drama
i_odin6 March 2020
Guilty is one of the new Netflix line ups for this year. And to a certain extent this is the most "well-made" of all of them.
The premise is intriguing and the way the story is laid out (at least initially), seemed to be really exciting. But the film somewhere lacks few things which (if there) could have made it into a masterpiece. It had all the great ingredients but somehow the execution falters.
Having said that, Advani's performance is a breath of fresh air. And the senior casts also shine. On top of that, few of the newcomers have actually done more than just being the "pretty new faces".
Moving back to the problems of this film (and boy there are many). First of all (on a lighter note) the number of times the word "MeToo" has been uttered in the film is actually kind of, little bit annoying (apologies in advance). I mean I get it, you are making a film and want to address the movement but I am sure there are more proper ways of doing it than just literally addressing the word in every third dialogue. Plus the story is so incoherent. I mean the film starts off by showing this lawyer (cum-Sherlock) investigating the truth and yet by the time film reaches second half does nothing actually to discover anything, apart from listening tapes and looking at Kiara. Even Kiara's character which is crafted as a nuanced, conflicted character but in the end comes across as one quintessential "Abla" Bollywood heroine. (To be fair, I didn't saw that coming at all). This film wants to be so many things, that after a point one would surely wonder which way the film is gonna go (which could be a good thing).
This film is not certainly bad. But the second half could have been more impactful. I get it, its a Bollywood film and the only way to make the message come across to the audience is by adding plenty of drama and insane amount of glycerin maybe. But I guess this film could have added one more word apart from MeToo and that is subtlety. I wish the film approached this great concept with more delicacy and grace. It could have been a perfect film like Pink maybe or Netflix's Unbelievable, but in the end this film is just Guilty... of adapting to all the classic Bollywood cliches. (You see what I did there)
Go ahead and watch. You might love it though.
The premise is intriguing and the way the story is laid out (at least initially), seemed to be really exciting. But the film somewhere lacks few things which (if there) could have made it into a masterpiece. It had all the great ingredients but somehow the execution falters.
Having said that, Advani's performance is a breath of fresh air. And the senior casts also shine. On top of that, few of the newcomers have actually done more than just being the "pretty new faces".
Moving back to the problems of this film (and boy there are many). First of all (on a lighter note) the number of times the word "MeToo" has been uttered in the film is actually kind of, little bit annoying (apologies in advance). I mean I get it, you are making a film and want to address the movement but I am sure there are more proper ways of doing it than just literally addressing the word in every third dialogue. Plus the story is so incoherent. I mean the film starts off by showing this lawyer (cum-Sherlock) investigating the truth and yet by the time film reaches second half does nothing actually to discover anything, apart from listening tapes and looking at Kiara. Even Kiara's character which is crafted as a nuanced, conflicted character but in the end comes across as one quintessential "Abla" Bollywood heroine. (To be fair, I didn't saw that coming at all). This film wants to be so many things, that after a point one would surely wonder which way the film is gonna go (which could be a good thing).
This film is not certainly bad. But the second half could have been more impactful. I get it, its a Bollywood film and the only way to make the message come across to the audience is by adding plenty of drama and insane amount of glycerin maybe. But I guess this film could have added one more word apart from MeToo and that is subtlety. I wish the film approached this great concept with more delicacy and grace. It could have been a perfect film like Pink maybe or Netflix's Unbelievable, but in the end this film is just Guilty... of adapting to all the classic Bollywood cliches. (You see what I did there)
Go ahead and watch. You might love it though.
Below average movie
sakethamargani7 March 2020
Its waste of time...just for kiara acting u can watch it...Really ,she nailed it...I expected much more out of this movie... the twists r not that cool, Watch last 20min u will get answer abt why movie named guilty...
It's actually a brave and good movie
simm-964031 July 2021
How could Karan Johar make such a pathetic movie for so sensitive topic
saxenarohitk7 March 2020
Warning: Spoilers
This is the worst produced movie from Johar's. This is worse than the Student of the year 2 which has 2.5 rating.
After watching this movie you will feel like DU is a red light district of Amsterdam as students gets involved in either smoking joints or girls all girls are crazy for one single guy and keep on seducing him.
A guy carries a girl on his shoulders inside a classroom (I don't think we may find any such college in entire world) and do you know who that girl was? She was the ward of the professor who was lecturing in that class. Is that some kind of spoof or a real movie on MeToo movement? Worst ever representation of a small town girl from Jharkhand.
Totally incoherent story telling.
Now a days it has become a trend of liking any web series with expletives as dialogues and thus so many reviews with good ratings. You will never feel empathetic with the victim. We have seen so many good movies on such topics like Pink, Mardani 2 and extremely wonderful web series Delhi Crime.
Could you believe a story where a sex crime victim in her teen age comes in support of her boyfriend who cheated on her and have been accused of rape?
Pathetic is the only word which suits this movie.
Business of law
hai-759291 May 2020
There is a very twist at the end of the storyline.
Initially being with the college life of some teenager the story will take you through a ride of trust friendship power law guilt all together.
Guilty has been a name given to all of the people who are responsible for...
Must a watch show .
@KiaraAdvani has done such a brilliant justice to the role .
All the best team for the work.
Worthless movie
inzamamulrahat8 March 2020
Watchable
sriramthestranger30 March 2020
The plot revolves a rape case filed by the victim under MeToo circumstances. But the characters were loosely designed and I actually thought Kiara's character is suffering from psychopathic disease with the back-to-back cuts. They somehow made it convincing at the end with a long list of dialogues and epilogue. But there are lot of gaps in the story only to make it disengaging. A good one time watch in Netflix!!
Consistently disengaging
cherexmachina7 March 2020
This film would have been a great one if they actually went full on with what it was doing but sadly we just get a shallow film that feels like it was only made for people in Bollywood and literally no one else on Earth.
And Kiara Advani was fine. But you realize how lucky Kanika was to have worked with seasoned actors like Kangana & Taapsee in the past to cover up her writing lapses, here it becomes more apparent how ordinary it becomes after a while.
Interesting and gripping. A nice take on MeToo
pankhuri-2291316 April 2020
No idea why so much hate and negative reviews for the movie. It was gripping to watch. The characters were interesting and the story obviously the MeToo story delivered in a powerful way that confuses you at times who to root for at different points in the movie. Better than other Karan Johar movies for sure.
An important movie after the backlash of #MeToo
abhi_singh986 March 2020
This movie asks some very important questions about consent, the "internet conviction" of both the perpetrator and the victim, and the social inequality that exists between what a man can do and what a woman can.
The movie is packed with good performances and impressive direction. But despite all of this, the movie is flawed by its pace where the first half is at times painful to watch with the characters just having random interactions which don't seem to move the plot forward in any way.
Overall, I would still recommend this movie if you are ready to reflect upon the society, the people around you and yourself..
The movie is packed with good performances and impressive direction. But despite all of this, the movie is flawed by its pace where the first half is at times painful to watch with the characters just having random interactions which don't seem to move the plot forward in any way.
Overall, I would still recommend this movie if you are ready to reflect upon the society, the people around you and yourself..
Bad storytelling and acting
abubakeryousufay8 March 2020
I was tryna watch this movie because of the good social lesson but I watched it like 30 minutes and I was really disturbed of their acting and storytelling... They just showed the college students really immature like they are some 16 YO... Don't mind me but if you wanna give some social lesson first make the plot and motivation of characters clear and mature otherwise the movie is not watchable... And the acting performance by whole cast was really very bad including Kiara...
Everything about this movie is wrong
poojabilash8 March 2020
Warning: Spoilers
As a girl i feel this movie concept is totally wrong . The girl is falling on the guy and basically inviting him to bed and when he starts to do the same and she says no and then it suddenly becomes #metoo movement. What a wrong justification this was .
Bore
dhole-shubham6 March 2020
Another crap movie from the Netflix engine
Feel-the-truth9 March 2020
Another crap outing on Netflix for the Indian film industry.
The films tries so hard to be cool, ultra modern but falls flat on its face. Kiara who I generally like as an actress is rubbish, all the actors were rubbish.
The real culprit is the script and the director, a metoo movie with twists. It doesn't work and even with me skipping sections it's still felt forever for the movie to end.
Netflix needs to start making media that people will like, stop experimenting. Just because sacred games worked that doesn't mean every crap idea will. Netflix will start to lose audience if the content its spending money on is rubbish like this.
The films tries so hard to be cool, ultra modern but falls flat on its face. Kiara who I generally like as an actress is rubbish, all the actors were rubbish.
The real culprit is the script and the director, a metoo movie with twists. It doesn't work and even with me skipping sections it's still felt forever for the movie to end.
Netflix needs to start making media that people will like, stop experimenting. Just because sacred games worked that doesn't mean every crap idea will. Netflix will start to lose audience if the content its spending money on is rubbish like this.
And finally something from Bollywood in Netflix that revives the trust of audience.
pranayjalvi6 March 2020
This rape convict mystery from Netflix under Dharmatic production is something that revives the sins of Bollywood films that dropped on Netflix. The characters, plot and the premise was convincing (even though the acting could have been better) and the direction by Ruchi Narain was good as well.
The subject of #MeToo was described with a genuine message, wherein still today the men are considered as a power over men. The movie was good but could have been better with more natural acting and a bit tighter screenplay. Kiara did well with her part, so did the other cast members.
My rating for 'Guilty' is 3.5/5.
The subject of #MeToo was described with a genuine message, wherein still today the men are considered as a power over men. The movie was good but could have been better with more natural acting and a bit tighter screenplay. Kiara did well with her part, so did the other cast members.
My rating for 'Guilty' is 3.5/5.
time pass
crazyboyarun7 March 2020
Watch it if you have no movies left to watch. nothing special neither in acting or story telling- extended short film. Director thought to twist by manipulating but at-last you will revel the twist in 1st half it self. Silly direction.
don't listen to negative reviews. Good one
pottamvivek14 March 2020
Kiara Advani steals the show in this one!
SaanyaChopraDua8 March 2020
Warning: Spoilers
Okay so Kiara Advani blew my mind in this one. I think she was what was so good about this film. You could understand the complexity behind who she was. Her pain was visible in every frame she was a part of. She truly looked like the broken one and carried the film on her shoulders.
Now the story was compelling and they did a pretty good job in terms of not revealing if the guy was guilty or not, and the girl accusing him was being honest or not.
While those parts were what I appreciated about the film, there were also things that didn't work for me.
1) The supporting cast - I was a little disappointed with the supporting casts performances. Now this is my personal opinion. I felt the characters lacked depth, of course some of them were meant to say despicable and vile things, the character work wasn't well chunked our in the story. They were made to look important but we know absolutely nothing about them. Also, the acting in some places was a bit much for me. The lingo was given more importance, the characters of friends almost always spoke alike, if they had one friend instead of like 4 the story would have still worked because well we know nothing about them.
2) So, my biggest issue with the script or story is that the girl accused just one guy of the crime and there is almost no inclusion of the friends in the entire story. The role they played is not given any credibility. I was quite shocked that they would tell a story like this one and make such a blunder in the end.
3) The court scenes were barely there, i understand that perhaps they didn't want to go that route, but we don't really get to see the Lawyers in the courtroom while they end up being prominent parts of the story.
4) again, I keep coming back to secondary character storylines, we know absolutely nothing about no one in the story. Kiara's character is the most chunked out and yet we see that she's dealing with issues and I could tell it had to do with her own past but we never get any visuals from the past. The makers are constantly telling us, rather than showing us.
And if there is one rule in screenwriting or filmmaking it is to Show, and not Tell.
But having said that. I think the music is unique and splendid. Kiara did a fab job. The story is definitely compelling and it's worth watching for an earnest attempt from Dharma (Dharmatic) Productions, to tell a new story, or at least their take on it. Also, watch it for Kiara!
Now the story was compelling and they did a pretty good job in terms of not revealing if the guy was guilty or not, and the girl accusing him was being honest or not.
While those parts were what I appreciated about the film, there were also things that didn't work for me.
1) The supporting cast - I was a little disappointed with the supporting casts performances. Now this is my personal opinion. I felt the characters lacked depth, of course some of them were meant to say despicable and vile things, the character work wasn't well chunked our in the story. They were made to look important but we know absolutely nothing about them. Also, the acting in some places was a bit much for me. The lingo was given more importance, the characters of friends almost always spoke alike, if they had one friend instead of like 4 the story would have still worked because well we know nothing about them.
2) So, my biggest issue with the script or story is that the girl accused just one guy of the crime and there is almost no inclusion of the friends in the entire story. The role they played is not given any credibility. I was quite shocked that they would tell a story like this one and make such a blunder in the end.
3) The court scenes were barely there, i understand that perhaps they didn't want to go that route, but we don't really get to see the Lawyers in the courtroom while they end up being prominent parts of the story.
4) again, I keep coming back to secondary character storylines, we know absolutely nothing about no one in the story. Kiara's character is the most chunked out and yet we see that she's dealing with issues and I could tell it had to do with her own past but we never get any visuals from the past. The makers are constantly telling us, rather than showing us.
And if there is one rule in screenwriting or filmmaking it is to Show, and not Tell.
But having said that. I think the music is unique and splendid. Kiara did a fab job. The story is definitely compelling and it's worth watching for an earnest attempt from Dharma (Dharmatic) Productions, to tell a new story, or at least their take on it. Also, watch it for Kiara!
Slow paced bore
rohithrsharma-411948 March 2020
Good movie and great story line
dy384936 March 2020
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