Nightcrawler (***½)
Directed by: Dan Gilroy
Starring: Jake Gyllenhaal, Rene Russo,
Riz Ahmed, Bill Paxton, Ann Cusack, Kevin Rahm
Seen: March 14th 2015
***½ Out of ****
Nightcrawler is Dan Gilroy’s
directorial debut, and his second sole writing credit after 2005’s Two for the
Money, starring his wife Rene Russo. He has co-written a few movies, most notably
Real Steel (2011) and The Bourne Legacy (2012). On Nightcrawler Gilroy traverses
a much darker road than with these previous efforts, moving away from pop
entertainment into a field of sombre social commentary. Nightcrawler is
chilling because it’s entirely plausible. It would in fact not surprise me to
know that this exact type of thing is already playing out in the world we live
in.
Lou Bloom (Gyllenhaal) has difficulty
finding a job appropriate to his skill set. Nightcrawler starts out with him
stealing from a construction site and assaulting the security guard confronting
him. Bloom sells the stolen materials to a scrap yard while also trying to sell
himself to the scrap yard, but the owner sensibly tells him he won’t hire a
thief. Driving home Bloom passes a fiery car wreck with emergency responders on
the scene and he pulls over to watch, not help. Joe Loder (Paxton) is filming
the carnage, and when Bloom spots the footage on TV, he illicitly obtains a video
camera and a police scanner to get in the game. He gets lucky when he films an
accident scene in more detail than Loder and his work is bought by Nina Romina
(Russo), the late night news director at a small TV station. She encourages him
to get better equipment, and tells him that violent case material out of wealthy
neighbourhoods gets better ratings, which would net him better pay. Bloom goes searching
the Los Angeles nights for these events, hiring an assistant Rick (Ahmed) to,
among other things, navigate them as events are reported on police bands. Since
Bloom had relatively questionable morals to start off with, he doesn’t bother following
the law or an ethical code in obtaining the best shot. He starts growing in
stature, becoming more and more arrogant and brazen in his approach. Eventually
he not only stands back from preventing harm, but directly causes harm in his
pursuit of controversial footage.
Nightcrawler is hard to watch. Gyllenhaal
disappears into a creepy and amoral character. He lost 20 pounds for the movie,
leaving him gaunt and hollow with eyes sunken in their sockets – perfect for
the emotionless recorder of terrible events he portrays. Bloom is a very interesting
character for the quasi-optimistic angle he puts on things like a job interview,
both to gain employment and for a potential employee, and his odd managerial
style towards said employee later on – and Gyllenhaal brings that to life with
utter credibility in every scene. While the supporting cast do not stand out
like this, they’re all really good and make you forget about their personas as
Hollywood actors – Rene Russo is both powerful and pathetic, Bill Paxton
channels some of his craziness that seems to have become his type lately (maybe
he really enjoys it), and Riz Ahmed delivers an effectively understated
performance as the only semblance of a conscience.
Nightcrawler is very good, but it’s
for limited target audience. It’s not popcorn entertainment and not many people
will find it enjoyable. Gyllenhaal thoroughly deserved the plethora of awards
and nominations doled out, and director Dan Gilroy has set himself a hard task
for his next movie. I found the commentary on the state of our news industry
scathing and brilliant, and for this I can recommend Nightcrawler as a
cautionary tale that will leave you chilled to the bone.
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