🎥 Den Skyldige (The Guilty) - Movie Review

Tonight, I was fortunate enough to have a rare evening to myself. The boys are asleep and the-mrs-gorilla was lucky enough to be offered a ticket to Blur's warmup gig at Winter Gardens in Eastbourne. Whilst I'd have loved a night of live music from an iconic band of my teenage years, tickets were hard to come by and somebody had to stay at home with the little 'uns. So I decided to see what I'd recorded on our digi box that was overdue a viewing.

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This is where I came across a film that I recorded well over a year ago (either January 2022 or 2021)! I hadn't watched it yet because I tend to be tired when putting films on and this one has subtitles, so keeping my eyes open is a minimum requirement.

Den Skyldige (The Guilty) is a Danish movie, all filmed in a single location. Whilst this doesn't sound too exciting, I've seen a couple of other films that have done this, the most memorable of which is Phone Booth which was surprisingly good. There is something strangely compelling about this film from the outset - the main character (Asger - played by Jakob Cedergren) is a Danish Police Officer whose currently on phone duty whilst he awaits a court hearing the following day. The movie follows the final part of his shift in real time with plenty of dramatic pauses where you're desperate for him to pick up the phone and make the next call.

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From the outset, I was hooked. At first by calls from a man who'd taken too many drugs, followed by a man who'd been mugged by a prostitute - a spot of dark humour that I fully appreciated. His reaction to both demonstrated a comical trait and impatience at the absurdity of the job he was doing and then the call that formed the main storyline for the movie - from a kidnapped woman called Iben.

Initially appearing to be another looney wasting police time, Asger eventually realised that this woman needed help and their initial phone call was her pretending to be speaking to her daughter. Instead, she had been kidnapped by the father of her children and being taken against her wishes.

At this point, it's tempting for me to talk through the movie and what happens but if you haven't seen it, then I would certainly ruin many of the key moments. Instead, I'll say that this movie is one that you really should add to your list of "must watch" movies. It's only 1 hour and 25 minutes long and the time will fly by - did I mention that I was gripped from start to finish? Perhaps I was sucked in by the inclusion of 2 young children of similar ages to my own - or more likely, I was already sucked in and this simply dragged me in even further.

The trailer below will instantly give you an idea of the tension that this movie creates...

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IMDB rates it at 7.5/10, a rating that it thoroughly deserves.