Last night we watched The Guilty by Antoine Fuqua, America's Director Laureate of Sheer Brutality. It's from 2021, on Netflix in the US right now. It's a remake of the Danish film Den skyldige, and it's incredible. The whole thing takes place at a 911 call center in Los Angeles, and it's every bit as fucked up as Fuqua's other films, like Brooklyn's Finest and Training Day.
It all centers on Jake Gyllenhaal, and it's so good because that motherfucker is a worker. I don't ever see him lazy in a film. He always takes the time to build a character deeply, his mannerisms, ticks, the way he gets upset or swallows it. Everything about the way he works is admirable. I read that for Southpaw he did 1,000 situps a day as part of his preparation. He masters the differences in how people act in fundamentally different ways, embedding himself in a psychology he has to construct in reverse to get to where the audience jumps into the story. Man, I think it may be worth it to watch just about anything with that guy just for his performance.
And let me tell you, Antoine Fuqua is one of the very best directors ever. He just knows everything in his bones about how to make a film the right way. His instincts are dead on. The performances are always right, never cartoonish nor empty. His actors in general are not lazy, which is the hallmark of a director who knows how to fix problems in a performance. Man, I need to go on a run of all his films in order, but they're all so damn dark and unwavering in their examination of human ruthlessness that I may have to watch Care Bears cartoons for a year to make up for them. The man gets my full respect.
I reasonably enjoyed Totally Killer and The Babysitter.
