The Guilty(2018)

Plot Summary

• Police officer Asger Holm begins his afternoon shift at the police station. He has been temporarily relegated to telephone duty, but he is happy that today will be the last day before he can resume his normal patrol duty again. The first calls start coming in. After calming down out a man who clearly calls in a simple drug-induced panic, the next case is a man who claims to have been robbed in the red light district. Asger calls out to the nearest police station for assistance, and is surprised to hear his boss Bo, who is currently doing a phone duty there. They have a some fun over the man who was obviously robbed by the prostitute he had just hired for sex, and Bo promises to send out a patrol car for him. Asger asks if Rashid is all right; Bo acknowledges, but sounds puzzled by the question, as if there should be something wrong with Rashid.Asger then receives a call from a journalist on his mobile phone who wants to ask him questions about his hearing tomorrow. Asger is taken by surprise and cuts her off, stating that he has no comment on the subject. His chef scolds him for answering personal calls in the call center area, but he replies that he thought it was for work.Asger is visibly shaken by the call, and nearly misses his next one. It is a woman called Iben, who sounds like she is in for small talk, but she is pretending to be talking to her child. From her tone, it is clear that she is under duress. Through a series of closed-ended questions, Asger is able to find out that she is being taken against her will by a man who is possibly armed with a knife. They are driving on the freeway in northern direction in a white van. Asger calls dispatch and asks them to send a police car to look out for the vehicle. Unfortunately he is unable to provide them with the license plate number. Asger switches the call back to Iben, telling her to be ready to signal the police, who are looking out for the car. However, the call is suddenly broken off. Asger calls dispatch again and is patched through to the unit that is driving over the freeway in search of the van. Due to the rain, the officers on the phone have a hard time identifying it, but when they find one, they force it to pull over. Asger listens in as the officers close in on the van, but it is a false alarm: there is no woman in the van. There is no sight of the actual vehicle.Asger tries calling Iben back but her phone is not answered. Through Iben's phone record, Asger finds out her address and home phone number. He calls it and a 6-year-old girl called Mathilde answers. She sounds very anxious as she tells that she lives with her mother and baby brother Oliver. Her father, "Michael", no longer lives with them, but he had showed up earlier that day in an agitated state. He was yelling to Oliver and then left with Iben, leaving both kids alone at home, telling the girl to let her brother sleep. Mathilde fears for her mother, so to calm her down, Asger tells her his name and assures her that the police are looking for her parents. He promises her that her mother will be returned safe and unharmed, and tells her to stay with her baby brother. He will make sure that a police unit is sent, and tells her to call again for him if she needs to.Through police records, Asger finds out that Michael has a history of violent behavior, and has been in jail for domestic abuse. He also finds out Michael's address, and that he drives a white van. He calls dispatch and gives them the license plate number to look for. He asks the officer on the line to send a unit to Iben's children who are alone. He also tells them to go to Michael's house and check it, breaking in if necessary, but the officer sternly tells him that this is not their job. Asger gets assurance from the officer that a car will be sent to the children.Asger's apprehension is noted by one of his colleagues, but he assures him that everything is all right. He apologizes to the man for his behavior of the past weeks, including today, before moving into a phone room separate from the call center area, where he is allowed to make personal phone calls. Iben's phone is still unanswered, so he calls Michael's listed cell phone number. Asger identifies himself as a police officer, stating that they received word that his children are home alone. Since their mother cannot be reached, he is telling Michael to go to their address and check up on his kids. Michael sounds preoccupied, clearly hiding something, and says that he is currently unable to do so. Asger decides to level with him, stating that they know he kidnapped Iben, and that the game is over. He instructs Michael to stop and wait for a police car to arrest him. Michael suddenly disconnects the call.A colleague comes in, telling that their shift is over and the night team has arrived, but Asger says that he wants to finish something, closing all the blinds in the room. He calls Bo again, explaining the situation and urging him to send someone to Michael's house, because there may be clues there about where Michael is taking Iben, but Bo reprimands him for deviating from official procedures. He tells Asger to let the police look for the van, and everything will be okay; he should go home to his wife. Bo has already hung up and doesn't hear Asger say that his wife has left him.Asger then calls Rashid on the phone, asking him for a favor and check a certain address. Rashid is happy to comply, but Asger is dismayed to hear that Rashid has been drinking a few beers at an office party. Rashid is supposed to give testimony in Asger's defense tomorrow, and cannot show up with a hangover. Rashid confesses to be nervous about the story that they have agreed to tell, fearing that he may not get the details right. Asger tells him that it is okay not to lie if he doesn't want to, but this agitates Rashid, who says that he cannot suddenly change the story that he has stuck to all those months. Asger calms him down and asks him to go to an address, promising to update him on what to do when he arrives.One of Asger's colleagues comes in and says that there is a little girl on the phone who wants to talk to him specifically. Taking the transferred call, he hears Mathilde saying that there are two police officers at her door. Asger urges her to let them in and give the phone to one of them. Asger talks to the officer, who says that Mathilde has blood on her hands and clothes. Asger tells him to hurry and search the place, because there is supposed to be a baby unattended. After a while, the officer comes back to the phone, saying that the baby is dead. Asger urges him to check for breathing, but the officer tells him there is no need, as the baby has been cut open with a knife. Asger tells the shocked officer not to let Mathilde in the room, but it is already too late, as he hears the little girl scream before the call is disconnected.Asger takes some time to process this news, and tries Michael's cell phone again. Michael answers, and Asger confronts him with what he just learned. Michael seems to dodge the issue, yelling that Asger doesn't understand, so Asgar loses his temper and says that dangerous guys like him deserve a bullet. Once again, the call gets disconnected. Asger tries Iben's cell phone again. She answers, again pretending to talk to her daughter. Asger finds out that they are still driving and neither is wearing a seat belt. He tells her to fasten her belt. She does, which raises suspicion with Michael, so Asger commands Iben to pull the hand brake immediately. There is some commotion on the other end of the line, and the call gets disconnected again.Asger gets another call on his own cell. It is Rashid, who has arrived on the address. Asger brings him up to speed, saying it is the address of a suspect in a kidnap case, and they need to go in and find some kind of clue as to where the kidnapper may be taking the hostage, such as a vacation address. Rashid finds the door open, indicating Michael left in a hurry. The interior is sparsely decorated, with only a mattress on the floor and a pile of paperwork on a table. Asger tells him to go through the papers in search of clues over Rashid's objections that this will take too long, as they simply have no alternatives left.Asger tries Iben's cell again. She answers, but she is very shocked and confused. She is still inside the driving van, but it is dark, leading Asger to conclude that Michael has locked her in the back of the van. Iben is very frightened, saying that she doesn't want to get locked up. Asger calms her down and tells her that she may need to defend herself from Michael as soon as he stops the van. Since Michael is a mason, Asger deduces that there must be some tools in the back, so he tells Iben to search around. She finds a brick, but when Asger tells her to hit Michael with it as hard as she can as soon as he opens the door, she gets into a panic again. Asger tries to distract her and asks her to tell something about her life. Iben tells her how she loves to take the children to the big city aquarium, because the gliding fish calm her down, especially her son Oliver who cries a lot. She says that she was finally able to calm him down today when she got rid of the snakes. Asger is puzzled, and asks what she means by that. Iben says that Oliver had snakes writhing in his belly, and he finally stopped crying when she cut them out of him. Before he can say anything, Asger hears the van stop and Michael opening the door. He shouts to Iben not to assault Michael, but it is too late: there are sounds of struggle, and the call gets disconnected.Utterly shocked, Asger receives another call from Rashid. He has gone through the paperwork and has found evidence of custody battles, as well as proof that Iben has been committed to a mental hospital before. Asger checks a map of the area, and finds that the mental hospital is on the route that Michael has been taking. Suddenly, he starts making sense of Iben's fear of "getting locked up".Intensely frustrated, Asger breaks several objects on his desk. He tries Michael's cell phone again. Michael is just regaining consciousness, barely having any notion of what hit him. Iben has fled. Asger tells Michael that he has learned the shocking truth, that Iben inadvertently killed Oliver, and expresses his regret of not assessing the situation properly. Michael is agitated, saying that he already knew that Iben could be a danger to the kids and herself, and needed psychiatric help. He had reached out to every institution, but no one would help. Asger tells him to stay put and wait for a police car to pick him up.A colleague of the night shift then comes in, telling him there is a woman called Iben on the line for him. He takes the call in the call center. Iben has come to her senses, she is now near a bridge. Asker calls in her position to dispatch. Iben asks Asger if she has murdered her own son. Asger tries to dodge the answer, but Iben asks him not too lie. Finally realizing what she has done, she tells Asger that she is on top of a bridge. He can hear her climbing the railing, waiting to jump to her death, so to stall her, he tells her that she is not the only one with snakes. He confesses to have killed someone on the job, a young man of barely 19 years. The man had done something terrible, and Asger, sick of the thought of such a person getting away easily, shot him on the site. Together with his partner, he fabricated a story that the victim attacked him, and that he acted in self-defense. After a silence, Asger can hear the sirens of the police through the phone, but Iben seems ready to say her final goodbye. Asger makes one final attempt to get through to her, but the phone abruptly disconnects. Seconds pass, as dispatch calls in: the police unit was able to take her in, alive and well.Under the confused looks of his colleagues, Asger gets up and walks towards the exit of the building, getting his phone out to make one final phone call.

Storyline

• Alarm dispatcher 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. With the phone as his only tool, Asger enters a race against time to save the endangered woman. But soon he realizes that he is dealing with a crime that is far bigger than he first thought. Police officer Asger Holm (Cedergren), demoted to desk work as an alarm dispatcher, answers a call from a panicked woman who claims to have been kidnapped. Confined to the police station and with the phone as his only tool, Asger races against time to get help and find her. After 12 years of service, demoted Copenhagen police constable Asger Holm finds himself stuck at an Emergency Services station answering distress calls. With cold detachment, Asger deals with routine calls until he becomes embroiled in a nail-biting, race-against-time investigation when desperate abduction victim Iben calls in seeking help. And driven by a strong sense of duty, Holm keeps his ears open for vital pieces of information only to become obsessed with single-handedly saving the kidnapped woman. Above all else, Asger is determined to bring Iben back safely--an honourable but unwise decision that will change his life forever. — Nick Riganas