Critic Reviews

Guilt is a guilty pleasure, and I won’t be missing a second of it.

You know how some dramas are so yawningly predictable that you know what line is coming next? Well Guilt, BBC Scotland's dark comedy, is not like that. You cannot tell whether the next bit of dialogue will be serious, funny or dripping in what I mean.

Darkly amusing four-part thriller. [30 Aug - 12 Sep 2021, p.15]

The script is sharp. Bonnar’s performance as Max – amoral, cunning, cowardly, and yet we’re rooting for him – is still top-drawer.

Happily it was brimming with just as much dark, dry, dour, deprecating wit as last time, a tight, coiled spring of a drama in which barely a second is wasted.

Phyllis Logan is the perfect antagonist: omniscient and omnipotent in the manor she runs, with a jagged personal brittleness beginning to poke through her armour. Opposite her, Bonnar has never been better in a role that lets him display his two great strengths – hypnotic charm and snarling, desperate malevolence – at the same time. They have made Guilt’s trip around Edinburgh’s dark corners a rare thrill.

There is plenty to like about series three. ... Bonnar is a great actor, capable of signalling half a dozen conflicting emotions simultaneously with just the tiniest flicker of facial expression (in Max’s case, one of these is almost always ‘panic’). He is a joy to watch, and Forsyth’s dialogue is a treat to hear.

Bonnar is always the standout actor in Guilt, but over the four episodes there are brilliant performances from many others. ... Although the farce went a shade too far when they were crawling through a pit of manure, its black humour remains sharp as a flick-knife.

It is largely a return to form, a suitable send-off for the battling. .... Forsyth has fully assimilated the lessons of the Coen brothers and the history of the caper film, and with an ending that lets in more sentiment than the show has previously allowed, he gives Jake and Max slivers of their Scottish dreams.

It starts off well, but becomes overly complicated to the point where the denouement doesn’t quite work. ... Like Netflix’s “Clickbait,” the end does not justify the means. But still, Sives is excellent, and he grounds the at times semi-comic craziness with Jake’s noble leanings.