“The Guilty” is a Danish crime thriller directed by Gustav Möller, with a screenplay Möller co-wrote with Emil Nygaard Albertsen. It is a testament to the fact that one does not need a giant budget, multiple locales, or a large cast to make a riveting thriller. “The Guilty” is a eighty five minute rollercoaster ride from start to finish.

Asger (Jakob Cedergren), a cop in Copenhagen, Denmark, stands accused of killing a nineteen-year-old man while on duty. While awaiting a court hearing for the incident, he has been tasked with answering calls at an emergency call center, the Danish version of a 911 emergency call center.

The night before his hearing, Asger receives a cryptic call from a woman who identifies herself as Iben Østergård. Iben is not forthcoming with details, but Asger senses that she may be in trouble. He quickly deduces that Iben could be abducted in a white van. Realizing that he does not have enough information to locate the abductor’s vehicle.

Asger finds Iben’s address and phone number and calls her home. A young voice identifying herself as six-year-old Matilde, Iben’s daughter, answers the call. She proceeds to inform Asger that her parents are estranged and that she, Matilde, and her baby brother live with her mother.

Claiming that her father Michael had come to their home earlier that day and that Michael and her mother had gone into her brother’s room and that Michael had forcefully taken away her reluctant mother.

Asger now learns that Michael is a former convict. He receives another call from Iben who is growing more desperate. Asger asks his colleague Rashid to break into Iben’s house. Can Asger save Iben from Michael in time? Is it possible that Asger has misread the entire situation and that there is more to this predicament than Iben’s claims? The rest of the movie answers these questions.

The entire movie is limited to a police emergency call center. Except for negligible scenes where one may catch a barely a glimpse of a few other people, Jakob Cedergren fills the entire movie and about 95% of all the frames of the movie.

Playing the tense, disturbed Asger, working against the clock to save a woman from trouble, Cedergren carries the film almost entirely on his own, and does so, magnificently. Will Asger be able to redeem himself from the case where he is accused of voluntarily killing a young man? Are there more surprises to come? Find out for yourself by watching this movie. While this movie has been remade in Hollywood with Jake Gyllenhaal as the lead, I would encourage my readers to stick to this original. This is an intense movie with shocking revelations, and as the saying goes, viewer discretion is advised.