“The Guilty”– Movie Review

This week at The Film Society Of Lincoln Center’s New Directors/New Films Festival, I attended a screening of the Danish suspense thriller, “The Guilty”.

Synopsis

When a police officer is forced to serve duty in emergency services as punishment, will he be able to help solve a crime and, in so doing, attain redemption?

Story

Copenhagen Police Officer Asger Holm isn’t terribly pleased that he’s ordered to perform emergency services duties; he’d much rather be out on the street solving crimes.  But given the fact that he and his partner Rashid have been accused of unnecessarily shooting a suspect, Asger is just grateful to still be on the police force – at least for now, anyway.  A hearing is about to be held as part of the police’s internal investigation of this situation; both Asger and Rashid know the truth, but their plan is to provide the investigators with a story which will exonerate them both.

Bored on a typically slow night, Asger gets a call that finally gets his attention:  Iben calls emergency services to report that she’s been abducted by her ex-husband, Michael.  Since Michael is with her at the time of her call, she has to be very careful in the way she speaks to Asger for fear that Michael will figure out what she’s doing.  Asger contacts the local dispatcher to send a patrol car out to pull them over, but given that the only identification available is that the couple are in a white van, they will be hard to locate.  Asger finds he needs to utilize all of his policing skills in order to rescue Iben. 

Eventually, Asger is able to conduct some necessary research to try to get more information about Iben and Michael; he discovers Michael has a criminal record and has been done time.  Realizing he’s dealing with a potentially dangerous person, Asger has a police car dispatched to Iben’s house in order to look after the children that were left behind – six year old Mathilde and her younger brother Oliver, an infant.  Good police work uncovers more information about the couple – but when Asger learns disturbing news that alters his perspective, how will this impact solving the crime? 

Review

Normally, if you were told that an entire movie’s action takes place in a single set and all of the dialog is entirely on the phone where you can’t see the other people, your reaction would understandably be underwhelming.  There are, however, occasional exceptions to the rule and “The Guilty” is most definitely one of them.  This is a film that reaches a suspenseful level early on and maintains that degree all throughout – a tough thing to do, but director Gustav Möller somehow manages to pull it off brilliantly.  Through his directing and editing choices, we experience the taut drama exactly the way Asger experiences it, grabbing our attention and not letting go.

Sadly, what must be noted is the timeliness of this movie.  In recent days – specifically, the Stephon Clark shooting – we have been reminded of the excessive savagery by the police.  Ironically, Asger is being investigated for the exact same thing – thus his being taken off the street and required to perform emergency services duty until the investigation has been completed.  He and his partner Rashid are planning to lie about what happened in order to avoid further consequences.  While the audience is aware of this, we are also aware of the fact that this same officer is trying to help solve a crime.  That is also part of the cleverness of the film – the fact that good and evil is not always a simple black and white issue.

Following the screening, there was an interview with director Gustav Möller, who also co-wrote the screenplay.  He said that this was a 13-day shoot and it was all done in chronological order.  In editing, much was cut out in order to maintain the pacing of the movie, which is vital to its success in storytelling.  Möller’s greatest influence was the first season of the podcast “Serial”, where you were forced to paint a picture of the characters in your mind and the more information you got about them, the more your perception of them changed.  Möller had no rehearsals – only table reads.  This was done in order to keep a fresh feel throughout the shoot.