The film to talk about is the new film “The Guilty” starring Jake Gyllenhaal. To say that this is really a good story, is a good idea, but also a good opportunity to show acting skills. But, it’s a shame that it’s hard to be messed up by director Anthony Quifua. It’s a shame to let down Jake Gyllenhaal’s operation and his good acting skills.
That said, the original Danish film “The Guilty” was released in 2018, and after Jake Gyllenhaal saw it, he thought it was great and quickly went out and took the rights for an American adaptation. Jake Gyllenhaal also brought in Anthony Quiffua as director. By the way, Quifua had sent Denzel Washington to the Oscar for the movie with “Training Day”. In addition, Quifua also directed a good reputation “Sun Tears”, “sniper”, “the wrongdoer”, “the brave seven” film, also considered a first-line Hollywood director. Jake Gyllenhaal and Quiffua have worked together on the boxing film “Iron Fist”, which is also quite good. The two are considered to know each other, Gyllenhaal asked Quifua to direct, also belongs to the intention.
However, Anthony Quiffua messed up. As a remake, the American version of “The Guilty” is not as good as the original. What a shame. What a shame! The specific technical reasons will be discussed later, but let’s talk about the idea of the movie and the story first. Tell the story first, after all, the story is more fun. Here are the spoilers oh. The Guilty” plot is very much like Nolan’s “Fragments of Memory”, there is a huge reversal in the middle, can flash the old back of the kind.
It’s not as brain-burning as “Fragments of Memory”, it’s not that complicated, it’s just a huge reversal in the middle. The hero in “Fragments of Memory”, has been looking for the real killer, in fact, he has long been killed by himself, only he forgot, still there to find around. When this reversal came out, it really took people by surprise, not expecting this at all, and the hero’s tragedy overflowed onto the screen at once. The Guilty” is also, it tells the story of a police operator who receives a 911 call from a woman who says she’s been kidnapped and is being held in a car, not knowing where she’s going to be pulled.
The responsible police officer naturally has to go to the rescue of the kidnapped woman. A small operator, trying to deploy all kinds of police resources to pursue the case, which is far beyond his duties. Everyone thought he was a good cop who was trying to save the people from the fire. He also stumped and helped the kidnapped lady to escape from the car by cracking the kidnapper’s head with a brick. All of this is heading towards a happy ending, much like a compliant cop movie. However, things are not so simple. The story, it suddenly reversed. Suddenly, the police operator discovered that there was no such thing as a kidnapping case! The woman who called the police is just a psychiatric patient, kidnapping is her own imagination, the so-called kidnapper, but her husband.
The police officer’s stumping only helped the mental illness to smash her husband. Moreover, there are worse incidents, which were also done by the mental illness itself. Originally, she was in her own home, imagining that her son had snakes in his stomach, and then tried to go to his aid by taking a knife and disemboweling his stomach. The child’s heartbreaking cries, she thought it was the snake’s effect, more energetic. She thought this was helping her son, that this was a sign of love, but in essence? God! The scene was too cruel to contemplate.
As a result, her husband arrived, took her to the car, and dragged her to the psychiatric hospital. As for their son, the father thought he was dead. He instructed the child’s sister not to go to her brother’s room and to behave at home and wait for her father. As a result, the little girl also called the police because she was scared at home alone. Luckily, the wiring police officer was sent over in time to save the little boy.
The whole story is almost a superb oops. You thought it was right, but it turned out to be wrong. What you thought was bad, he was actually good. What you thought was righteous behavior turned out to be harmful. So what made the wiring police officer so reckless? In fact, he was not a professional operator either, but a sergeant who actually shot the suspect to death while performing police duties because he didn’t like the look of him. To be an operator would have been a demotion of his punishment. He also had to face going to court for a hearing and trial.
Everything about his character, in fact, in the film has been fully done to lay the groundwork. It was also through this case that he figured it out and decided to face up to himself and accept the disposition of the law. If there is nothing unusual about this story either, then the form in which this story is presented is rare enough. What is it? The Guilty” is, in the end, a closed-cell film, and the whole film is almost a one-man show. All the plot, relying on a single actor sitting at a desk, told through telephone conversations.
Other actors, contributing only the voice, all the acting and exciting, all rely on the protagonist alone in support. In this case, the test of acting is extraordinarily harsh, there is almost no way to make the slightest mistake. After all, a one-man show will infinitely magnify the actor’s every move, and a tiny flaw will become infinitely larger. The director’s and screenwriter’s abilities are also extraordinarily demanding, and there is no room for any slip-ups. A typical example is “Buried Alive”, which has a number of obvious watered down plots, and is rigidly made up to the length of the film. The Guilty” is a very tight story, several seemingly idle and redundant phone calls, namely a drug addict calling the police for help, a john being robbed by a prostitute asking for help, etc., are illustrating that this is a chaotic city, the protagonist is in the midst of a disorderly world, his mentality has long been distorted, causing his character to be biased. These conversations deepen the image of the protagonist, and also provide an explanation of why he is reduced to an operator and the upcoming These dialogues deepen the image of the protagonist, but also for its fall into the operator and the upcoming hearing silently do the groundwork, by no means the plot watered down.
Also, the cleverness of the Danish version of “The Guilty” lies in the fact that the director makes full use of the actors’ acting skills, giving them close-ups most of the time so that all the audience’s attention is focused on the actors’ performances.
The American version of “The Guilty” is a bit of an addendum, it will be found in Copenhagen story transferred to the United States in Los Angeles, which is not much. The U.S. version also adds context to the whole story, which is that there was a mountain fire next to Los Angeles, so much so that most of the police force was transferred to deal with matters related to the fire. The police force involved in this case is stretched to the limit, but also adds to the tragedy of the protagonist. This added background is harmless, and makes the plot a little tighter. Accordingly, this is a good thing, but compared to the original version, it feels unnecessary.
What is worth criticizing is that the American version has fewer close-ups, and the majority of shots become medium shots, which makes Gyllenhaal’s proportion in the picture much smaller, but those extra images are not more informative. On the contrary, it greatly weakened Gyllenhaal’s acting skills.
The original version of the actor, according to how good the acting, it is actually not to talk about, because the actor’s expression changes, emotional changes are not obvious enough, the lack of subtle expression ability. But Gyllenhaal is not lacking this, he is a proper strength, the performance of the layers of the obvious and the original version of a lot more. However, the monologue does not give close-ups, these subtleties of the emotional expression can not be fully expressed. The original version feels like the protagonist does not feel acting skills, but still very catchy, is to attract the audience has been staring at him to see.
Correspondingly, Gyllenhaal’s performance did not show too much convincing, not at all as exciting as the original version. In the end, it’s not the actors who are not good, it’s the director who is not good. Quiffua failed Gyllenhaal’s trust in him, but also failed the original version of the wonderful story and creativity.
So, the American version of “The Guilty” is far less good than the original “The Sinner”. What a pity, what a pity! The one-man show, if performed well, can easily become a classic cult film, in addition to the above-mentioned “Buried Alive”, others like “Network Mystery”, “Sniper Phone Booth”, “Locke” performance are quite eye-catching.
The “sniper phone booth” has done it. The Internet Mystery” also did it by guarding a computer. The original “The Guilty” also did it, but unfortunately because it was a small language, limited impact, Jake Gyllenhaal originally had almost set up a classic for himself.
