Review of The Guilty (2018) by Brent_Marchant — 01 Aug 2020

This chilling tale of an overzealous but compassionate Copenhagen policeman assigned to emergency services desk duty while on probation serves up a taut, edge-of-your-seat psychological thriller about his valiant efforts to aid in the investigation of a possible kidnapping of a young mother by her ex-convict husband.

Told almost entirely through a series of phone conversations between the officer and his colleagues, the victim and the alleged perpetrator, writer-director Gustav Moller relies on the sound of his performers' voices to carry the story, forcing viewers to use their own imaginations to visually fill in the gaps, an expert use of Hitchcock's rule if there ever were one.

The result is a harrowing journey into the minds of the characters, as well as the viewers' own minds, aided by a script loaded with unexpected twists and turns. This captivating offering reaches out and grabs the audience's attention despite its simple, play-like staging, presenting a gripping story that only gets better the further along it goes.

A genuine and vastly underrated cinematic knock-out.