Nightcrawler Review

Nightcrawler

 "Do you know what fear stands for? False Evidence Appearing Real."  -Lou Bloom

   A cringe-worthy tale of Los Angeles nightly news, and the last 20 minutes of this movie made me the most uncomfortable out of ANY movie I have ever seen.

   Nightcrawler, directed and written by Dan Gilroy, is a neo-noir crime thriller that stars Jake Gyllenhaal as Lou Bloom, Rene Russo as Nina Romina, Bill Paxton as Joe Loder, and Riz Ahmed as Rick.

  Lou Bloom is an unsocial scavenger that sells scrap metal to a construction company, but driving home one night he stops by the side of the freeway and sees a car accident with firemen and camera men all over the scene. He gets the idea that he could do the job that the camera men do: take videos of crime scenes and sell it to news stations. He starts and eventually gets good at it...too good.

 ^OK Lou, if you see blood leading up the stairs, that might be a sign to turn around and walk away^

  Lou hires a down-on-his-luck young guy named Rick to help him with the filming. Getting paid a salary in which you can't fully live on, Rick is forced to stick with Lou who creates anarchy for Rick on their nights together.

  ^Boy do I feel bad for you, Rick^

  Before I get into what I liked about the film, let me just say that Nightcrawler is a very dark film. I cringed through a lot of the scenes that involved Lou (which was pretty much the whole film).

  So throughout the film, Lou gives clear signs of psychopathy. He manipulates, lies, threatens, and emotionally abuses everyone he meets. A true alienated individual who disregards the lives and emotional status of humans. This being said, I believe that Jake Gyllenhaal gave the acting performance of his lifetime in Nightcrawler. A performance that I would compare this to is Robert De Niro's Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver. I would say that Jake's performance is on par with his, in terms of playing a mentally ill person.

^Jake...Please...You're scaring me^

   The attention to detail in Nightcrawler supersedes any of my knowledge of Los Angeles traffic. It's clear that Dan Gilroy did his research on the infrastructure of LA. The streets from the wealthy Granada Hills to the poverty-stricken areas of LA made the film that much sweeter.

^Oh no, no, no, no, no. How do people live like this?^

  I'm not going to sugar coat this, I like the pacing and the dialogue, but the conclusion, for me, is a bit underwhelming. I enjoyed the whole movie throughout. The ending WAS NOT a bad ending. I just didn't enjoy it as much as the beginning and middle parts. This was a film in 2014, so I guess I can kind of spoil it: Lou wins and he creates his own company. That's pretty much where it ends.

^Don't be so smug. I saw it coming^

  Even though the ending just dropped me off in the middle of the street without taking me to my destination, there really isn't anything else I didn't like about this movie. The social commentary made about nightly news and the people who work for them was creative and intense. This worked very well. Also, I know I said I cringed throughout the movie, but the last 20 minutes of the movie made me the most distressed out of any film I have ever seen...now go see it!

Pro

• Jake Gyllenhaal's performance
• Disturbingly beautiful
• Attention to detail of LA areas
• Social commentary

Con

• Ending fell a little flat

 

4.7/5

Watch the trailer here 

Nightcrawler is rated R for violence including graphic images, and for language.

Nightcrawler is on Blu-ray, Netlfix, and other streaming services now

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