Deservedly cleaning up at awards season, this exceptional Danish thriller earns bonus points by showing how ‘cinematic’ nothing more than a couple of interior office spaces, fluorescent lighting & a man tethered to his computer phone system can be. Superbly written & paced by Gustav Möller, this talking-head/near monologue has no problem holding our attention as it builds layers of mystery & tension. Jakob Cedergren (think ‘80s Kevin Costner) is a patrol cop grudgingly working the phones at Emergency Services while he waits for his case on an unnecessary shooting to come up. Rude and unsympathetic on calls, his default manner is put to the test when an abducted mother comes on his line. Piecing the situation together (violent ex-husband, taken at knife point, two kids home alone), Cedergren’s instincts as patrolman play against his current job description which limit him to passing on accurate info to the proper outfit. Instead, he starts working the case, trying to save the situation before time runs out. Heroic, unless he’s misread everything that’s going on. Fabulous stuff here, perfectly played, all done thru Cedergren and his phone conversations. With a great twist, and a great wrap-up. The only mystery left is why no one has snapped up this actor’s bait for a Hollywood remake. Maybe just as well. Easy to see some major player turning this into a vanity production.*
DOUBLE-BILL: Sydney Pollack moved from tv to features on THE SLENDER THREAD/’65, a similar idea given a timely racial twist with Anne Bancroft getting Sidney Poitier on the crisis hotline.
ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: *Just released Fall 2021, Antoine Fuqua directing Jake Gyllenhaal in a well-reviewed remake (not seen here), scoring a 6.2 IMdB rating compared to the original’s 7.5.
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