The Guilty 

2018  Danish  1hr 28 mins Cert: 15

Director: Gustav Möller

Alarm dispatcher and former police officer Asger Holm answers an emergency call from a kidnapped woman. When the call is suddenly disconnected, the search for the woman and her kidnapper begins.  A crucial part of the picture is Jakob Cedergren’s tinderbox of a performance. Police officer Holm has been taken off the street pending a formal investigation, which is scheduled for the following day. From his brusque manner it seems he feels the emergency phone operator work is beneath him. For reasons that eventually become clear, Holm very much needs to be a hero right now

The seventy-five minutes that follow are so taut that you might almost forget to breathe, and the film’s narrow visual focus, often simply on the face of Holm, accentuates the crackling cleverness of a screenplay that enables us to unravel a mystery in real-time. The raw nerve-jangle that this thriller delivers is partly thanks to this screenplay, which is as clever as it is deft.