We meet Joe Baylor Gyllenhaal on the night shift in a dispatch center as his city of Los Angeles burns on massive screens in the background. All of this oppressive tension leads him to quickly judge the people who call him, like when he scolds a caller for taking drugs or argues with another who has been robbed by a prostitute on Bunker Hill.
The breakneck pace of this thriller picks up when Joe gets a call from a terrified woman named Emily Riley Keough , giving an absolutely phenomenal voice performance. He acts on his interpretations and makes some drastic mistakes. Fuqua and Pizzolatto carefully tie Joe's behavior into errors in police work without ever making the film into a commentary on Defunding the Police.
And Gyllenhaal completely commits, filling almost every frame of the minute film. He will be a good cop, a good father, and a good man. Of course, anyone who places that much personal baggage on one case is going to make crucial mistakes.
Gyllenhaal goes deep hereβit will be too broad for some in the final scenesβbut I was reminded how invested he is every single time. He never phones it in. They add just enough of their own flavor while maintaining the thrust of their source so that only the most purist could argue against their innocence in the court of movie criticism.
This review was originally filed after the world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 11th. It opens in limited theatrical release on September 24 th and it will be on Netflix on October 1 st. Brian Tallerico is the Editor of RogerEbert. Rated R for language throughout. Jake Gyllenhaal as Joe Bayler.
